Florence  NishtinEale 


As  Seen  in  Her  Portraits 


Price  $1.25 


MAUDE  E,  SEYMOUR   ABBOTT,  B.A.,  M.D. 

■'■■:':\\\:kM>-       McGiLL  University 
^^' ■Vv-;'--v.-;^> --■,■-■>;:■  MoN 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 

GIFT  OF 


DR.  AND  MRS.  ELMER  BELT 


Florence  Nightingale 


As  Seen  in  Her  Portraits 


With  a  sketch  of  her  life,  and  an  account  of  her 
relation  to  the  origin  of  the   Red  Cross  Society 


BY 

MAUDE   E.  SEYMOUR   ABBOTT 
McGiLL  University 

MOxNTREAL 


Fifteen  Illustrations 


BOSTON,   U.  S.  J. 

'lieprinted  from  the  Boston  Medical  and  Surgical  Journal 

September  14th,  2 1st  and  28th,   igi6 


Plate  VII.     Florence  'Nightingale  at  Scutari. 


Plate  VII.     Florence  Nightingale  at  Scutari. 
From   an   Albion   print   of   a   drawing   by   Wandesforde,   engraved   by   W.    Wellstood. 


(.See  page   29.) 


rO  THOSE  NOBLE  WOMEN  ivho  have 
followed  in  the  footsteps  of  3Iiss  Nightin- 
gale, and  have  thereby  raised  the  profession  of 
Nursing  to  the  high  place  it  now  occupies,  and 
who  maintain  it  therein  above  the  dust  of  com- 
mercialism,— Agnes  Jones  of  the  Workhouse 
Infirmary  of  Liverpool,  Mrs.  Bedford  Fenwick 
of  St.  Bartholomew's  Hospital,  London,  Edith 
Cavell  of  Belgium,  Isabel  Hampton  Robb  and 
Adelaide  Nutting  of  the  Johns  Hopkins  Hos- 
pital, Baltimore,  Nora  G.  E.  Livingstone  of  the 
Montreal  General  Hospital,  Mabel  F.  Hersey  of 
the  Royal  Victoria  Hospital,  Montreal,  and 
many  others, — this  little  manuscript  is  affec- 
tionately and  reverently  dedicated. 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 


Introductory 


PAGE 

3 


The    Portraits    ^ 

I     The  Childhood  of  Florence  Nightingale  . .       » 
1820  - 1835. 

Plates  I.  II. 

II     Girlhood  and  Early  Womanhood   IT 

1835  -1853. 

Plates  III,    IV,   V,   VI. 

Ill     The  Period  of  the  Crimean  War   29 

October,   1854  -  August,   1856. 
Plate  VII. 

The  Nightingale's  Return   37 

IV     The    Period    Immediately    Following     the 

Crimean    War    41 

1856  - 1861. 

Plates  VIII,  IX,  X,  XL 

V     Florence  Nightingale  in  Later  Life  57 

1861  - 1910. 

Plates  XIL  XIII,  XIV,  XV. 

Bibliography 

Miss  Nightingale's  Writings    71 

Writings  about  Miss  Nightingale   75 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE* 

AS   SEEN   IN    HER   PORTRAITS 

By  Maude  E.   Seymouk  Abbott,  B.A.,   M.D. 
McGill  University,  Montreal. 

INTRODUCTORY. 

It  is  nearly  three  quarters  of  a  century  since 
the  name  of  Florence  Nightingale  first  thrilled 
through  Europe,  plunged  in  the  horrors  of  the 
terrible  Crimean  War.  The  details  of  her  great 
and  beneficent  achievement  have  been  forgot- 
ten by  many,  and  in  their  full  extent,  indeed, 
have  only  been  known  by  very  few.  Yet  her 
name  remains  as  a  household  word  among  us, 
breathing  always  the  charm  diffused  by  a  life 
consecrated  to  high  ideals,  and  symbolizing  to 
us  the  power  to  move  mountains  of  the  passion- 
ate womanly  sympathy,  discerning  judgment, 
and  magnificent  organizing  genius,  which  to- 
gether made  her  at  once  the  Crimean  heroine 
and  the  great  reformer  of  military  hygiene  of 
the  Victorian  Age.  Today  we  are  again  plunged 
into  a  war  which  has  become  even  more  terrible 
than  any  in  the  past,  in  consequence  of  the  re- 
finements of  so-called  civilization  as  applied  to 
methods  of  modern  warfare.  But  we  have  to 
thank  the  stream  of  military  reform  that  set  in 
after  the  Crimean  crisis,  so  largely  initiated  and 
directed  by  the  influence  of  Miss  Nightingale, 
that  the  care  of  the  soldiers — wounded,  sick,  or 
well — has  been  placed  at  the  present  day  on  a 
very  high  plane  of  efficiency. 

In  view  of  the  immensity  of  detail  in  such  a 
life  as  that  of  Florence  Nightingale,  a  complete 
account  is  impossible  here.  The  most  that  can 
be  attempted  is  a  brief  outline  of  those  events 

*  Adapted  from  an  Address  on  "The  Work  of  Florence  Nightingale 
and  Medical  Units  in  Active  Service  Today,"'  delivered  before  the 
Harvard  Historical   Club.  December  7,    1915. 


that  led  up  to,  and  followed  the  great  Crimean 
climax,  which  revealed  her  to  the  admiration 
and  affection  of  a  grateful  humanity.  For  fur- 
ther detail,  those  who  are  interested  should  con- 
sult the  splendid  Life  of  Florence  Nightingale, 
by  Sir  Edward  Cook,  issued  in  two  volumes,  in 
1913,  by  MacMillan  and  Company,  London. 
The  appearance  of  this  book,  from  which  the 
materials  for  this  little  sketch  are  drawn,  has 
been  an  event  in  biographical  literature.  Based 
upon  a  thorough  study  of  a  mass  of  written  rec- 
ords, including  Miss  Nightingale 's  own  diaries 
and  voluminous  correspondence  and  many 
other  papers,  official  and  otherwise,  not  pre- 
viously laid  open  to  the  public,  it  for  the  first 
time  presents  her  story  fully  and  fairly  to  the 
world,  without  sentimental  exaggeration,  but 
with  the  force  of  actual  recorded  facts.  The 
story  of  the  ''Crimean  Muddle,"  as  the  situa- 
tion she  was  called  upon  to  cope  with  in  the 
East  was  picturesquely  called,  is  told  with  fair- 
ness and  discrimination,  and  the  history  of  her 
activities,  both  then  and  in  her  subsequent  life, 
is  accurately  detailed.  As  a  result,  we  find  the 
Florence  Nightingale  of  our  traditional  knowl- 
edge replaced  by  a  somewhat  different,  but  a 
more  human,  and,  we  venture  to  think,  a  much 
greater  character, — one  in  whom  the  self-devo- 
tion and  passionate  tenderness  of  heart  towards 
the  distressed,  for  which  she  has  always  been  im- 
mortalized, were  combined  with  an  unswerving 
singleness  of  aim,  a  wide  clarity  of  judgment, 
and  immense  powers  of  organization  and  execu- 
tion that  initiated  and  carried  out  far-reaching 
reforms.  Her  story,  as  here  learned,  is  not 
alone  that  hackneyed  theme,  familiar  to  us  all, 
of  a  gifted  and  gentle  lady,  who,  moved  with 
patriotic  pity,  braved  the  dangers  of  the  seat  of 
war  for  the  sake  of  helping  the  distressed  sol- 
diers of  a  beloved  Queen,  and  who  became  there- 
after the  popular  heroine  of  the  Victorian  Age. 
The  secret  of  her  immense  popularity  and  of 


the  lasting  greatness  of  her  name  has  had  a 
more  logical  foundation  and  a  deeper  root  than 
could  have  been  possible  from  the  fruits  of  any- 
single  action.  For  in  this  case,  as  so  often,  vox 
populi  vox  Dei  est. 

From  this  new  biography  we  learn  that  her 
life  before  that  Crimean  climax  was  one  long 
struggling  preparation  and  battling  through  of 
the  many  barriers  raised  alike  by  social  preju- 
dice and  domestic  affections  towards  the  voca- 
tion that  she  felt  was  hers,  though  she  knew  not 
how  or  when  it  might  come  to  her,  but  which, 
when  it  came,  found  her  ready,  with  prejudices 
defeated,  expert  training  secured,  spiritually 
and  mentally  waiting  for  one  of  the  great  med- 
ical and  military  crises  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury, that  was  to  be  hers  to  control  and  to' 
subdue.  Nor,  after  the  crisis  in  the  East  was 
over,  did  she  subside  into  the  gentle  inaction  of 
an  invalid  chamber,  as  has  been  popularly 
thought,  but  from  that  chamber,  battling  with 
the  physical  illness  that  remained  after  her  ex- 
ertions in  the  Crimea,  and  that  threatened  her 
life  many  times,  she  proceeded  unrestingly  to 
the  solution  of  those  many  pressing  problems 
by  which  medical  science  was  revolutionized  by 
her  in  various  directions. 

Had  it  not  been  for  the  absolutely  Herculean 
labors  of  Florence  Nightingale,  invalided  in 
body,  but  of  indomitable  will,  after  her  return 
from  the  Crimea,  the  terrible  lessons  of  the  war 
would  have  remained  unlearned  by  the  British 
nation,  and  the  great  reforms  in  the  hygiene 
of  the  British  army,  sanitary  science  both  in  the 
East  and  "West,  hospital  construction,  and  last 
but  not  least,  in  the  profession  of  the  gentle  art 
of  nursing, — reforms  which  she  instituted,  or- 
ganized, and  actually  dictated  to  Court  and 
Ministers  alike, — would  not  have  been  carried 
out,  and  the  many  wrongs  she  righted  would 
have  remained  for  the  sufferings  of  a  later  gen- 
eration to    retrieve.      In   the    face   of  her  pro- 


longed  illness,  the  heroism  that  struggled  and 
won  success  for  those  reforms  was  on  a  higher 
plane  than  that  by  which  she  won  the  nation's 
praise  at  Scutari  and  Balaklava. 

It  is  this  new  and  immensely  heroic  present- 
ment of  her  genius,  so  evident  now  that  the  true 
story  of  her  life  is  unveiled  to  us,  that  I  would 
endeavor  to  reflect  here.  In  the  words  of  a 
recent  essayist,  the  Crimean  episode,  truly  seen, 
is  only  an  incident  in  her  career.  Her  title  to 
rank  among  the  great  figures  of  history  would 
have  been  as  unchallengeable  without  that 
tremendous  chapter.  For  her  work  was  not 
passing,  but  permanent;  not  incidental,  but 
fundamental. 

THE    PORTRAITS. 

The  series  of  portraits,  which  form  an  illus- 
trative basis  for  this  article,  have  been  drawn 
from  various  sources,  which  are  acknowledged 
below  each.  The  writer's  thanks  are  also  due 
to  the  late  Mr.  J.  B.  Learmont,  who  made  a 
collection  of  Nightingale  memorabilia,  and  pre- 
sented several  of  the  fine  engravings  reproduced 
here,  to  various  institutions  in  Montreal;  to 
Miss  Helen  Desbrisay  of  the  Canadian  Nurses' 
Association  for  much  valuable  information ;  and 
especially  to  Dr.  Harvey  Gushing,  to  whose  in- 
terest and  through  whose  kind  cooperation  the 
publication  of  this  article  in  its  present  form 
is  due. 

In  the  following  paragraphs  an  attempt  is 
made  to  group,  under  the  periods  in  which  these 
various  portraits  fall,  a  short  biographical  out- 
line of  the  main  facts,  or  rather  factors,  in  the 
development  of  Miss  Nightingale's  character 
and  work,  and  of  their  far-reaching  results. 


I 

THE    CHILDHOOD    OF 
FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE 

1820-1835 

Plates  I  and  II 


The  Childhood  of  Florence  Nightingale 


Florence  Nightingale  was  born  in  Florence, 
Italy,  in  the  year  1820,  during  a  winter's  so- 
journ of  her  parents  there.  One  of  two  only 
daughters  of  wealthy  parents,  she  was  brought 
up  in  all  the  luxurious  refinement  of  the  best 
type  of  English  home,  in  the  midst  of  a  large 
and  affectionate  family  connection,  in  an  en- 
vironment enriched  by  all  the  intellectual  ad- 
vantages and  the  happiness  that  such  circum- 
stances could  bring.  Born,  as  it  may  be  said,  a 
democrat,  she  quickly  learned  to  discount  the 
importance  of  these  things  in  themselves,  and 
yet  her  life  was  colored  throughout  by  these 
early  relations,  which  gave  her,  in  the  wide  ex- 
perience of  suffering  and  distress  that  came  to 
her  in  later  years,  a  sense  of  proportionate 
values,  and  a  capacity  of  taking  herself  and 
others  for  granted,  that  was  one  of  the  ele- 
ments in  her  power,  and  that  could  probably 
have  come  to  her  in  no  other  way.  The  rich 
English  scenery,  too,  in  which  she  lived  through- 
out her  childhood  and  girlhood  days,  and  in 
which  she  revelled  consciously,  even  as  a  little 
child,  must  have  sunk  deep  into  her  observant 
and  sensitive  nature,  and  been  to  the  great  spir- 
itual powers  lying  dormant  there,  as  springs  of 
water  in  a  thirsty  land.  For  there  are  few 
more  beautiful  homes  and  surroundings  in  Eng- 
land than  the  estates  of  Lea  Hurst  in  Derby- 
shire, and  Embley  in  Surrey,  on  which,  with  his 
family,  Mr.  Nightingale  passed  alternately  the 
winter  and  summer  months  of  every  year. 

The  two  sisters  were  the  objects  of  much  ten- 
der personal  care  from  their  parents.  Mrs. 
Nightingale  was  a  woman  who  accepted  and  ad- 
hered strictly  to  the  religious  and  social  con- 
ventions of  her  day,  but,  within  their  limits, 
9 


I'LAiE   1.     Mrs.   ^KjHTInuale   and   Her   Daughters,  1828. 

From   a   portrait   in   the  possession  of  Mrs.    CuiiHffe,   and    reproduced    in   Sir   Edward    Cook's 
Life  of   Florence  Nightingale. 


10 


she  was  prompt  and  generous  in  the  exercise  of 
a  philanthropy  that  devolved  as  a  duty  upon 
an  Englishwoman  of  her  means  and  position. 
Both  her  daughters  were  early  permitted  to 
share  in  their  mother's  solicitude  for  the  poor  of 
their  father's  estate,  and  to  accompany  her  on 
errands  of  help  among  them.  Such  activities 
appealed  especially  to  Florence,  who  quickly  re- 
vealed her  innate  sympathy  for  the  sick,  phil- 
anthropic bent,  and  deeply  religious  nature.  The 
contrast  between  the  lot  of  rich  and  poor  struck 
her  then,  as  it  continued  to  do  with  increasing 
force  throughout  life,  as  an  incongruity,  and 
her  childish  diaries  and  letters  contain  naive 
comparisons  and  comments.  She  was  a  healthy 
child,  fond  of  a  frolic,  and  not  free  from  un- 
regenerate  impulses  towards  unsympathetic 
governesses,  yet,  on  the  whole,  serious-minded^ 
and  a  little  self-absorbed,  with  a  tendency  to 
introspection  that  sometimes  verged  upon  the 
morbid,  and  an  inclination  to  belittle  herself 
and  her  powers,  that  arose  partly  out  of  a  con- 
scientious knowledge  of  her  own  shortcomings, 
and  partly  from  a  natural  shyness,  amounting^ 
almost  to  self-consciousness. 

Her  love  for  animals  was  very  strong,  and  she 
had  a  succession  of  pets,  which  she  cherished, 
sick  or  well.  The  story  of  the  injured  collie- 
dog,  which  had  been  regretfully  condemned  to  be 
hanged  by  his  master,  because  of  a  hopelessly 
broken  paw,  and  which  she  tended  under  the 
guidance  of  the  vicar,  all  one  long  summer  day, 
until  the  prospect  of  healing  was  assured  and 
the  delighted  shepherd  acknowledged  his  right 
to  live,  is  almost  too  hackneyed  to  repeat.  But 
it  is  a  true  story,  and  is  of  interest,  because  it  is^ 
intently  characteristic  of  a  little  girl  who, 
many  years  later,  refused  to  give  up  the  lives 
of  the  five  Crimean  soldiers  who  were  pro- 
nounced "too  far  gone  to  be  operated  on." 
"Will  you  give  me  these  men  to  do  as  I  like 
with  ? ' '    she    asked    of    the     surgeons    as   they 

11 


Plate    II.      1"i,<ii;k.\i  i.    >i'.HTi.N(,Ai.E    and    the    Injihed   Coli.ie    Dog. 

From   an   engraving   in   the   possession   of    Miss   White,    Assistant    Superintendent    of   the    Royal    Victoria 

Hospital,  Montreal. 


12 


turned  away.  And,  the  necessary  consent  ob- 
tained, she  sat  all  night  through  beside  them, 
tending  their  wounds  and  supporting  them  with 
food  and  stimulant,  with  such  success,  that 
when  morning  came,  the  surgeons,  with  sur- 
prised relief,  were  able  to  carry  out  what 
would  earlier  have  been  a  useless  task.  One 
wonders  if  the  adoring  affection  in  the  eyes  of 
the  gentle  collie  equalled  the  gratitude  in  the 
hearts  of  those  poor  wounded  men! 

Like  many  of  his  circle,  for  he  belonged  to 
that  interesting  Unitarian  group  among  whom 
the  Martineaus  were  so  prominent,  Mr.  Night- 
ingale held  views  on  the  higher  education  of 
women  that  were  far  in  advance  of  his  time. 
He  personally  supervised  the  education  of  his 
daughters,  himself  teaching  them,  as  they  grew 
older,  modern  languages  and  classics,  European 
and  Constitutional  History,  and  even  higher 
mathematics.  They  wrote  essays  and  analyzed 
philosophical  treatises,  pursuing  much  the 
same  course  of  study,  under  his  tutorship,  as 
would  be  followed  now  for  a  university  degree. 
Florence  was  an  ardent  and  laborious  student, 
arising  often  at  four  in  the  morning  to  carry 
out  her  preparations,  and,  as  Sir  Edward  Cook 
remarks,  to  her  father's  guidance  in  these  ways 
she  was  undoubtedly  indebted  for  the  mental 
grasp  and  power  of  intellectual  concentration 
that  distinguished  her  work  in  later  life. 

Conscientious  to  a  degree,  imbued  with  a  feel- 
ing of  responsibility  and  a  religious  sense  of 
self -dedication  that  developed  in  her  very  early 
years,  absorbed  in  a  round  of  studies,  duties, 
and  pleasures  provided  by  her  wise  yet  indul- 
gent parents,  Florence  Nightingale  grew  from 
an  engaging  child  into  the  "girl  of  sixteen  of 
great  promise"  that  a  contemporary  letter  de- 
scribes. 


13 


II 

GIRLHOOD  AND  EARLY 
WOMANHOOD 

1835-1853 

Plates  III,  IV,  V,  VI 


Girlhood  and  Early  Womanhood 


In   1837,  when    his    younger    daughter    was 
seventeen,  Mr.  Nightingale  took  his  family  to 
the  Continent,  and  eighteen  delightful  months 
were  spent  in  leisurely  travel  through  France, 
Italy  and   Switzerland.     Everywhere  the  best 
social,   artistic,   musical,   literary   and  political 
circles  were   open   to   them,   and   they  entered 
heartily    into    the    complex    foreign   life   about 
them.     The  tour  ended  with  a  winter  in  Pans, 
where,  in  the  brilliant  salons  of  their  friends, 
the    two  charming  girls  discovered  themselves 
both  attractive  and  attracted.     Freed  from  the 
shyness  that  had  troubled  her,  Florence  found 
she  had  social  gifts  of  a  high  order,  and  con- 
fesses in  her  diary  that  the  last  temptation  she 
had  to  overcome, 'before  she  was  free  to  inter- 
pret that  insistent  inner  call,  was  a  "desire  to 
shine  in  society." 

All  this  was  pleasant  enough,  and  there  was 
no  reason  to  suppose  at  this  time  that  Florence 
Nightingale  would  do  otherwise  than  fulfil  the 
expectations  of  her  parents,  and  be  content  to 
live  out  the  life  of  a  happy  English  girl,  and 
later,  perhaps,  become  the  wife  of  some  good 
and  worthy  man.    It  was  only  after  their  return 
to  England,  and  a  short  London  season,  when 
they  were  settled  again  in  the  midst  of  the  busy 
hospitality  of  their  country  home,  that  a  sense 
of  the  inadequacy  of  the  social  pleasures  and 
domestic  joys  that  surrounded  her  came  upon 
her.     It  was  to  increase  with  the  years,  until, 
long  before  she  attained  her  freedom,  she  strug- 
gled against  the   restrictions  that  bound  her, 
with  all  the  restlessness  of  a  caged  bird.     The 
very  happiness  of  the  home  that  sheltered  her, 
and  the  warmth  of  its  affections,  were  gilded 
17 


Plate  III.     Florence   Nightingale   as   a    Girl. 

From  a  drawing'  by  Sir  Hilary  Boiiham  Carter,  and  reproduced 
in   Sir   Edward   Cook's  Life  of   Florence   Nightingale. 


bars  against  which  she  almost  broke  her  heart. 
To  understand  the  nature  and  the  greatness  of 
this  part  of  Miss  Nightingale 's  achievement,  that 
consisted  in  surmounting  the  obstacles  that  lay 
in  the  way  of  her  preparation,  one  must  project 
oneself  in  imagination  into  the  age  in  which 
she  lived,  seventy  years  ago,  when  it  was  an 
unheard-of  thing  for  a  beautiful  and  accom- 
plished girl  to  do  an.ything  outside  of  the  pre- 
cincts of  her  home.  Her  mother  and  sister,  af- 
fectionate as  they  were,  did  not  even  under- 
stand her  impulse,  and  when  at  last  it  formu- 
lated itself  into  a  distinct  sense  of  a  vocation 
18 


lo  care  for  the  sick,  as  it  did  when  she  wa^ 
twenty-five,  they  felt  towards  it  a  real  dis- 
favor. Nor  can  one  hlame  them,  remembering 
the  low  standards  of  hospital  life  of  those  days 
^nd  the  degraded  type  of  nurse.  She  was  an 
affectionate  and  dutiful  daughter,  and  yielded 
to  her  parents'  wishes  for  many  years,  doing 
her  best  to  be  happy  and  to  make  others  happy, 
in  what  was  to  her  a  ceaseless  round  of  trivial- 
ities, and  often  suffering  intensely  from  the 
sense  of  frustration  of  her  higher  self.  For,  in 
addition  to  the  fact  that  there  were  great 
powers  of  organization  and  execution  ferment- 
ing in  her  mind,  which  at  that  time  had  no 
outlet,  and  that  she  was  swayed  by  a  really 
passionate  altruism,  Florence  Nightingale  was 
distinctly  conscious,  as  much  so  as  any  other 
saint  in  history,  of  a  "call  to  be  a  saviour,"  as 
she  expresses  it  more  than  once  in  her  diaries. 
In  an  autobiographical  fragment,  written  in 
1867,  she  mentions  February  7th,  1837,  at 
Embley,  as  the  day  when  "God  called  me  to 
His  service,"  and  several  times  this  period  is 
referred  to  as  one  of  the  chief  crises  of  her 
inner  life.  It  was  the  sense  of  defection  to  this 
inner  call  during  these  years  of  abeyance,  under 
which  she  suffered  most.  Her  father  was  a  Uni- 
tarian, but  she  and  her  mother  and  sister  fol- 
lowed the  usages  of  the  Church  of  England. 
Later  in  life  her  theological  opinions  became 
very  broad,  and  she  may  be  said  to  have  con- 
formed to  no  dogma  except  the  existence  of  a 
personal  God,  but  she  maintained  throughout 
her  life  this  deeply  religious  attitude  of  mind, 
and  this  fact  must  be  recognized  in  any  true 
estimate  of  her  life  and  work.  In  no  other  way 
is  to  be  explained  her  humility  of  spirit,  which 
may  be  likened  to  that  of  St.  Francis  of  Assisi, 
and  her  dislike  of  public  acknowledgment, 
which  sprang  not  only  from  natural  modesty, 
but  from  an  inner  principle. 


19 


Plate    IV.     Miss    Nightingale    (about    1845). 

From  an  engraving  in  the  possession  of  Miss  Livingstone, 
Lady  Superintendent  of  the  Montreal  General  Hospital, 
Montreal,  from  a  drawing  by  H.  M.  B.  C,  published  Nov. 
28th,   1854,   by  P.   and   D.   Colnaghi,   London. 


It  was  with  an  affectionate  hope  of  distract- 
ing her  from  her  tiresome  purpose,  and  with  an 
entire  lack  of  sympathy  in  her  feeling,  that  her 
mother  and  sister  planned  and  arranged  several 
continental  trips  for  her  with  congenial  friends. 
The  winter  of  1847  was  spent  in  Rome,  with 
her  friends  the  Braeebridges,  who  afterwards. 
20 


served  with  her  in  the  Crimea.  It  was  an 
eventful  year  for  the  future  of  her  desire  in 
more  than  one  respect.  In  Rome  she  met  the 
Sydney  Herberts,  and  began  that  friendship 
with  Lord  Herbert,  that  was  so  fruitful  in  great 
results  in  the  Crimea  and  after.  And  she  be- 
came intimate  with  and  studied  the  methods  of 
an  Italian  nursing  sisterhood.  Moreover,  it  waa 
a  time  of  great  happiness  in  other  ways,  for  her 
appreciation  of  the  beautiful  was  intense.  The 
Sistine  Chapel  came  to  her  as  a  revelation,  and 
remained  as  one  until  the  end  of  her  life.  Her 
description  of  it  is  exquisite. 

The  winter  of  1849-1850  she  again  spent  trav- 
elling, this  time  in  Egypt  and  Greece.  It  was 
at  Athens  that  she  picked  up  a  baby  owl  that 
had  fallen  among  the  ruins  of  the  Parthenon. 
She  carried  it  in  her  pocket,  and  brought  it 
home  to  Embley,  where  it  lived  for  years.  A 
small  tragedy  of  her  departure  for  the  Crimea, 
was  that  the  family,  in  leaving  town  to  see  her 
off,  forgot  to  feed  the  owl,  which  was  dead  oii 
their  return.  The  portrait  by  Lady  Verney 
(Plate  V)  shows  the  owl  on  the  pedestal  beside 
her,  and  it  is  carved,  too,  on  the  foot  of  the 
Derby  memorial  statue. 

It  was  on  her  way  back  to  England  from 
Greece,  on  July  31,  1850,  that  she  first  visited 
the  Deaconesses  Institute  at  Kaiserwerth  on  the 
Rhine.  This  had  been  the  goal  of  her  desires 
for  the  last  six  years,  and  repeatedly  her  hopes 
to  see  it  had  met  with  disappointment.  It  was  a 
Protestant  Sisterhood,  organized  by  Pastor 
Fliedner  and  his  wife,  for  the  care  of  the  sick 
poor,  and  discharged  prisoners,  and  for  the 
education  of  orphans,  along  lines  which  ap- 
pealed intensely  to  her.  The  deaconesses  took 
no  vows,  but  came  voluntarily,  because  they  felt 
a  vocation.  She  spent  a  fortnight  in  the  insti- 
tution then,  and  returned  the  following  summer 
(1851),  the  free  consent  of  her  parents  having 


21 


Plate     V.     Miss    Nightingale     (about     1849). 

From  an  engraving  in  the  possession  of  the  Victorian 
Order  of  Nurses,  Montreal,  from  a  drawing  by  her  sister, 
Lady    Verney,    published   June,    1855,    by   Colnaghi. 


at  last  been  obtained,  for  three  months'  train- 
ing. In  the  hard  work,  long  hours,  and  ascetic 
simplicity  of  the  life,  as  well  as  in  the  high- 
minded  admonitions  of  the  pastor,  she  took  the 
deepest  delight,  and  pronounced  herself  at  last 


22 


"intensely  happy."  It  was  a  turning-point  in 
her  career,  for  she  came  to  feel  there  that  her 
life  was  at  last  her  own,  and  the  time  for  in- 
decision and  yielding  was  past.  There  were  still 
difficulties  and  doubts  at  home,  but  she  was  no 
longer  restless,  but  assured.  February  of  1853 
saw  her  established  at  the  Soeurs  de  la  Provi- 
dence in  Paris  for  another  short  period  of 
study,  and  in  July  of  that  year  she  took  her  first 
post,  as  superintendent  of  the  "Sick  Gov- 
ernesses' Home'"  on  Harley  Street.  Here  she 
remained,  winning  the  confidence  of  a  difficult 
committee,  and  a  still  more  difficult  class  of 
patients,  until  a  short  time  after  the  outbreak 
of  the  Crimean  War. 

In  this  little  sketch  of  Florence  Nightingale, 
during  her  time  of  aspiration  and  probation, 
there  are  many  aspects  that  have  not  been 
touched  upon  at  all.  Her  character  was  indeed 
fair  and  pure,  as  these  early  portraits  well 
show,  but  there  were  shadows  as  well  as  lights 
within  it.  The  acquirement,  for  instance,  of  the 
remarkable  habits  of  precision,  regularity  and 
method  that  characterized  her  later  years  was 
attained  only  through  difficult  stumbling.  "Let 
those,"  says  Sir  Edward  Cook,  "who  reproach 
themselves  for  a  desultoriness,  seemingly  incur- 
able, take  heart  again  from  the  example  of  Flor- 
ence Nightingale  !  No  self-reproach  recurs  more 
often  in  her  private  outpourings  at  this  time, 
than  that  of  irregularity  and  even  sloth.  She 
found  it  difficult  to  rise  early  in  the  morning; 
she  prayed  and  wrestled  to  be  delivered  from 
desultory  thoughts,  from  idle  dreaming,  from 
scrappiness  in  unselfish  work.  She  wrestled, 
and  she  won."  To  her  again  the  palm  of  vic- 
tory! 

Again,  the  unfulfilled  longing  that  so  long 
possessed  her  for  practical  expression  of  her 
powers  and  mission,  and  her  habits  of  self- 
examination  and  of  religous  thought,  did  not 
prevent  her  from  sharing  in  a  very  full  way  the 
23 


Plate    VI.     Florence   Nightingale. 
From    a    painting    in   the    National    Portrait    Gallery,    by 
Augustus   Egg,   R.   A.,   and  reproduced  in   the  Life  of  Flor- 
ence  Nightingale  by  Annie   Matheson. 


life  that  went  on  about  her.  Florence  Nightin- 
gale was  no  sad-eyed  ascetic.  We  hear  of  her 
managing  private  theatricals,  mothering  young 
cousins,  nursing  maiden  aunts,  absorbed  in 
housekeeping  responsibilities,  sympathizing 
with  the  love  affairs  of  friends,  and  a  host  of 
other  things.  No  happiness  could  exceed  that 
of  that  winter  in  Rome. 
24 


Nor  did  she  escape  that  experience  that  comes 
to  almost  every  man  and  woman  in  life.  She 
was  sought  in  marriage,  long  and  persistently, 
by  one  with  whom  her  own  heart  was  engaged. 
With  a  clear-sightedness,  born  of  her  consecra- 
tion to  an  ideal  stronger  and  higher  than  her- 
self, she  put  this  form  of  earthly  happiness  be- 
hind her,  feeling  that  she  could  not  do  her  duty 
to  him  and  to  her  work.  Not  from  any  belittle- 
ment  of  the  married  state,  nor  from  any  lack 
of  knowledge  of  what  the  higher  kind  of  mar- 
riage might  mean  to  them  both  did  she  act,  but 
in  the  same  spirit  that  prompted  Saint  Theresa 
or  Santa  Filomena.  One  of  the  most  touching 
of  her  good-bye  letters  before  she  left  for  the 
Crimea  was  from  this  friend.  "You  undertake 
this,"  he  wrote,  "when  you  cannot  undertake 
me!" 


25 


Ill 

THE  PERIOD  OF  THE  CRIMEAN  WAR 

October,  1854,  to  August,  1856 

Plate  VII 


The  Period  of  the  Crimean  War 


This  portrait,*  one  of  the  best  known  of  the 
earlier  pictures  of  Miss  Nightingale,  shows  her, 
in  garb  and  visage  of  the  pre-Crimean  days, 
seated  on  what  is  evidently  a  portico  at  Scu- 
tari, overlooking  the  Straits  towards  Constanti- 
nople. "I  have  not  been  out  of  the  Hospital 
yet,"  she  wrote,  ten  days  after  her  arrival,  "but 
the  most  beautiful  view  in  all  the  world  lies,  I 
believe,  outside  my  door." 

As  will  be  remembered,  the  Crimean  War  was 
waged  between  Russia  and  Turkey,  with  Great 
Britain  and  France  ranged  as  allies  on  the  lat- 
ter side.  The  battlefield  was  the  Crimean 
peninsula  on  the  northeastern  border  of  the 
Black  Sea,  and  the  bloodshed  was  so  great  as  to 
almost  parallel  the  horrors  of  today.  The  Brit- 
ish public  accepted  with  resignation  the  news 
of  the  sacrifices  in  the  field.  But  it  met  in  a 
different  spirit  the  alarming  reports  that  fol- 
lowed immediately  upon  the  news  of  the  Battle 
of  Alma,  fought  on  September  20,  1854,  of  the 
ravages  which  neglect  and  disease  were  making 
among  the  multitude  of  the  wounded,  under  the 
complete  lack  of  sanitation  that  prevailed 
among  the  British  troops.  Not  only  were  the 
hospital  supplies,  that  had  been  freely  sent  put, 
unavailable  for  use  through  misunderstandings 
with  the  Turkish  customs  and  other  stu- 
pidities, so  that  the  men  were  unclothed  and 
unfed,  and  all  sanitary  measures  neglected,  but 
there  was  an  entire  lack  of  proper  attendance 
for  the  sick,  the  skilled  female  nurses  employed 
by  their  French  allies  providing  an  invidious 
comparison.  A  letter  to  the  Times  from  its  cor- 
respondent, William  Howard  Russell,  exposing 

*  See    frontisjiieee. 

29 


these  defects  in  no  measured  terms,  and  calling 
upon  England  for  redress,  evoked  a  storm  of  in- 
dignation that  swept  the  country.  Miss  Night- 
ingale's training  and  personality  were  well 
known  to  a  large  circle  of  influential  friends, 
and,  moreover,  her  excellent  administration  of 
the  "Governesses'  Home"  had  brought  her  into 
touch  with  another  side  of  the  philanthropic 
public.  The  letter  to  the  Times  appeared  on 
October  12.  On  October  14,  under  the  action 
of  a  small  committee,  headed  by  Lady  Maria 
Forester,  she  wrote  to  her  friend  Lord  Sydney 
Herbert,  who  was  then  Minister  at  War,  asking 
for  authority  to  go  out  at  her  own  expense  at 
the  head  of  a  small  band  of  five  nurses.  It  is 
one  of  the  coincidences  of  history  tha't  her  letter 
to  Lord  Herbert  crossed  one  from  him  to  her, 
asking  her,  in  the  name  of  the  British  "War 
Office,  to  undertake  this  task,  and  urging  her 
acceptance  of  it  on  the  ground  that  she  was  the 
only  person  in  England  who  could  make  it  a 
success,  and  promising  her  undivided  authority 
over  the  "Female  military  nursing  establish- 
ments in  the  East"  and  unlimited  supplies. 
On  October  21,  five  days  after  the  matter  was 
formally  settled,  she  sailed  for  the  East  at  the 
head  of  thirty-eight  nurses,  of  whom  twenty- 
four  belonged  to  the  Roman  Catholic  and  Angli- 
can sisterhoods  and  the  remainder  were  un- 
trained. During  these  five  days  of  selection  of 
candidates  and  all  the  mass  of  detail  involved 
in  the  organization  of  such  an  expedition,  as 
also  in  all  the  exigencies  of  the  uncomfortable 
voyage  out,  the  most  noteworthy  thing  about 
Miss  Nightingale  was  her  absolute  calm,  and 
her  quiet  control  of  the  situation. 

The  groups  of  military  hospitals  in  the  East 
bore  to  each  other  something  of  the  relationship 
that  the  field  and  base  hospitals  of  our  forces  do 
now.  On  the  Crimean  peninsula,  in  the  imme- 
diate neighborhood  of  the  conflict  and  amongst 
the  adjacent  hills,  there  were,  in  addition  to  the 
30 


regimental  dressing-stations,  four  large  general 
hospitals,  some  established  in  huts,  others  in 
buildings.  On  the  opposite,  that  is,  the  south- 
western, side  of  the  Black  Sea,  across  the  Bos- 
phorus  from  Constantinople  and  overlooking 
the  Sea  of  Marmora,  were  the  three  great  Brit- 
ish military  hospitals  of  Scutari,  two  of  which, 
the  General  and  Barrack  Hospitals,  were  under 
the  jurisdiction  of  Miss  Nightingale,  as  also 
were  all  the  hospitals  in  the  Crimea,  and  for  a 
time  those  at  Koulali,  four  miles  distant  from 
Scutari.  It  was  to  the  great  Barrack  Hospital 
of  Scutari  that  she  came  on  arrival,  and  there 
she  had  her  headquarters.  The  abuses  com- 
plained of  in  the  Times  were  especially  evident 
here  because  of  the  great  overcrowding,  the 
more  unhealthy  situation,  the  prevalence  of 
cholera  and  other  infections,  and  the  fact  that 
the  means  of  transport  across  the  Black  Sea 
was  very  poor,  so  that  the  wounded  arrived  at 
Scutari  in  the  last  stages  of  exhaustion,  in  a 
condition  when  the  lack  of  suitable  food  and 
the  general  inefficiency  worked  greater  havoc. 

The  party  arrived  at  Scutari  on  November  4, 
1854.  The  Battle  of  Balaklava  had  been  fought 
on  October  25,  and  that  of  Inkerman  on  the 
day  before  their  arrival,  and  the  wounded  were 
pouring  in.  The  hospital  was  a  huge  place, 
capable  of  accommodating  over  2000  patients 
(the  maximum  at  one  time  was  2434,  on  De- 
cember 23,  1855),  and  containing,  in  its  over- 
crowded state,  over  four  miles  of  beds,  eighteen 
inches  apart.  In  a  letter  written  on  November 
14,  Miss  Nightingale  writes  that  there  were  1715 
sick  and  wounded  (among  whom  were  120  chol- 
era patients),  in  this  hospital,  and  650  in  the 
other  building,  called  the  General  Hospital,  of 
which  they  also  had  charge,  "when  a  message 
came  to  prepare  for  510  wounded  arriving  in 
half  an  hour  from  the  dreadful  atfair  at  Bala- 
klava. Between  one  and  nine  o'clock  we  had  the 
mattresses  stuffed,  sewn  up,  laid  upon  the  floor, 
31 


the  men  washed  and  put  to  bed,  and  their 
wounds  dressed."  It  was  with  such  numbers 
and  with  similar  emergencies,  under  circum- 
stances of  extreme  complexity,  that  Miss  Night- 
ingale had  to  cope,  during  that  first  six  months. 

The  fact  that  there  was  gross  maladministra- 
tion in  every  department  of  these  hospitals  at 
the  time  of  her  arrival,  has  been  clearly  estab- 
lished by  the  Royal  Commission  appointed  at 
the  time.  The  trouble  was  partly  due  to  an  or- 
ganization without  central  authority,  partly  to 
gross  ignorance  of  ordinary  hygiene,  partly  to 
the  want  of  the  woman's  touch,  and  in  part 
doubtless  to  the  real  lack  of  capacity  of  certain 
officials  to  deal  with  a  novel  situation.  Miss 
Nightingale  brought  all  her  powers  of  tact, 
courage,  judgment  and  resolution  to  meet  the 
exigencies  of  the  case.  The  large  public  funds 
that  had  been  placed  at  her  disposal  by  the 
Times  and  other  sources,  as  well  as  her  own 
private  income,  enabled  her  to  tide  over  a  situa- 
tion otherwise  hopeless;  but  the  problem  re- 
mained to  meet  these  urgent  necessities  within 
the  limitations  set  by  military  rigidity  and  pro- 
fessional jealousy,  for  she  realized  from  the  out- 
set that  strict  discipline  must  be  observed  by 
herself,  and  a  proper  subordination  to  the  med- 
ical officers  in  charge.  Much  has  been  said  of 
her  "irregular"  methods  of  cutting  tlie  Gordian 
knots  of  her  dilemmas  by  supplies  from  her  own 
reserves  or  by  deliberate  and  unauthorized  in- 
vasion of  the  purveyor's  stores.  But  she  never 
neglected  to  support  such  action  by  a  medical 
requisition,  and  investigation  shows  that  she 
never  set  authority  causelessly  aside.  Rather 
she  had  the  insight  of  that  perfect  discipline, 
which  recognizes  the  point  at  which  the  break- 
ing of  the  letter  is  the  fulfilment  of  the  spirit 
of  the  law! 

Many  of  the  difficulties  are  detailed  in  her 
letters  to  Lord  Herbert,  with  suggestions  for 
their  redress.  Thus,  on  her  arrival  there  was  no 
32 


provision  for  the  cleaning  of  the  hospital,  "not 
a  basin,  or  towel,  or  piece  of  soap,  or  a  broom, ' ' 
and  her  first  requisition  was  for  300  scrubbing 
brushes!  The  patients'  linen  was  not  washed, 
and  the  bedding  was  only  rinsed  through  in 
cold  water,  for  the  contract  made  by  the  pur- 
veyor with  this  object  broke  down  before  the 
convoys  from  Inkerman  came  in.  Her  first  step 
was  the  renting  and  equipping  of  a  Turkish 
house  as  a  laundry,  and  the  placing  of  the  sol- 
diers' wives  at  the  washtubs.  There  was  no 
clothing  in  the  purveyor's  stores,  while,  by  a 
curious  command,  the  soldiers  had  been  re- 
quired to  leave  their  knapsacks  before  the 
Alma,  in  order  to  "march  light"  towards  Sebas- 
topol.  In  consequence  the  wounded  arrived 
half  naked  and  destitute  of  kit  wherewith  to 
leave  the  hospital.  "I  am  clothing  the  British 
Army,"  she  wrote.  Again,  on  her  arrival  she 
found  the  entire  cooking  done  in  thirteen  huge 
boilers,  with  no  provision  whatever  for  extra 
diets  or  special  delicacies  between  times,  and, 
by  an  extremity  of  red-tapeism,  the  rations 
were  served  raw  in  small  quantities  for  each  pa- 
tient. "This  practice,"  writes  Miss  Nightin- 
gale to  Lord  Herbert,  "seems  invented  on  pur- 
pose to  waste  the  time  of  as  many  orderlies  as 
possible,  and  it  makes  the  patients'  meals  late, 
because  it  is  impossible  to  get  the  diets  thus 
drawn,  cooked  before  three  or  four  o'clock.  The 
scene  of  confusion,  delay,  and  disappointment, 
where  all  these  raw  diets  are  being  weighed  out 
by  twos,  and  threes,  and  fours,  is  impossible  to 
conceive,  unless  one  has  seen  it,  as  I  have,  day 
by  day.  Why  should  not  the  Commissariat  send 
at  once  the  amount  of  meat,  etc.,  required,  to 
the  kitchens,without  passing  through  this  inter- 
mediate stage  of  drawing  by  orderlies?"  One 
of  the  most  important  measures  introduced  by 
her  at  the  Barrack  Hospital,  was  the  opening, 
within  10  days  of  her  arrival,  of  two  extra  diet- 
kitchens,  and  the  placing  of  three  supplemen- 
33 


tary  boilers  for  arrowroot  on  various  stair- 
cases. A  few  months  later  the  great  Soyer 
joined  her  as  a  volunteer,  and  took  over  the 
management  of  this  invaluable  part  of  the  work. 

And  so  with  a  thousand  other  details  of  man- 
agement and  equipment.  She  organized  relief 
measures  for  the  women  camp  followers,  pro- 
vided reading  rooms  for  convalescent  soldiers, 
engaged  and  superintended  200  builders  in  the 
emergency  repair  of  a  large  part  of  the  hos- 
pital, trained  orderlies  in  sanitary  measures, 
and  herself  did  the  work  many  times  of  a  sani- 
tary engineer,  everywhere  applying  the  ex- 
pert's touch.  But  all  this  would  have  been  in- 
effectual had  she  not  had  behind  her  own  ac- 
tion the  intelligent  and  informed  power  of 
those  in  authority  at  home.  Her  long  days 
were  followed  by  nights  of  letter-writing,  when 
she  indicated  clearly  to  high  sources  what  the 
necessary  reforms  were,  and  just  how  they 
should  be  carried  out.  Not  only  had  she  the 
loyal  support  of  Lord  Herbert  and  his  col- 
leagues, but  the  Queen  herself  was  behind  the 
prompt  execution  of  her  suggestions,  and  this 
was  one  of  the  most  important  sources  of  what 
was  called  by  her  enemies  "The  Nightingale 
Power."  Among  other  measures  enacted  at  her 
suggestion,  it  was  due  to  the  Executive  Sanitary 
Commission,  appointed  in  the  winter  of  1855, 
to  act  with  plenary  powers  on  the  spot,  that  the 
horrible  sanitary  conditions  of  the  hospital, 
which  may  be  said  to  have  overlain  a  great  cess- 
pool, were  removed.  The  death  rate  fell,  as  the 
result  of  the  action  of  this  Commission,  with 
remarkable    rapidity. 

But  there  was  still  another  side  of  her  ac- 
tivity— and  that  the  ceaseless  keynote  of  the 
whole,  to  which  all  her  functions  of  adminis- 
trator and  reformer  were,  in  a  sense,  secondary. 
"A  Ministering  Angel  Thou!"  Her  devoted 
care  of  the  patient,  personal  sympathy  for  the 
sufferer,  skillful  tending  of  the  exhausted,  and 
34 


faithfulness  to  the  dying, — all  those  qualities 
that  went  to  make  the  Lady-in-Chief  at  once 
the  Queen  of  Nurses  and  the  adored  of  the 
wounded  soldiery,  shone  day  and  night  through 
those  crowded  wards  at  Scutari  like  the  beam 
of  her  own  lamp  ! 

In  the  spring  of  1855  Miss  Nightingale  crossed 
the  Black  Sea  to  the  Hospitals  of  the  Crimea 
and  remained  there  for  some  time.  The  phys- 
ical strain  upon  her  here  was  great,  for  the 
several  hospital  buildings  were  distant  from 
each  other,  and  she  was  obliged  to  go  from  one 
to  another,  often  in  the  depth  of  night,  over 
rough  country.  With  her  strength  undermined 
by  tlie  strain  of  the  work  at  Scutari,  she  fell  ill 
of  Crimean  fever,  and  nearly  died.  It  was 
when  the  ncM^s  of  her  recovery  reached  an 
anxious  England,  that  the  popular  feeling  for 
her,  which  had  been  growing  stronger  ever 
since  the  day  it  was  discovered  that  the  "Mrs. 
Nightingale"  of  the  Nursing  Expedition  was  a 
young  and  beautiful  woman,  and  which  was 
being  constantly  enhanced  through  coointless 
grateful  letters  home  from  wounded  and  dying 
soldiers,  burst  all  bounds,  and  a  wave  of'ten- 
derest  enthusiasm  swept  England  from  shore 
to  shore.  A  public  meeting  was  called  in  Lon- 
don "to  give  expression  to  the  general  feeling 
that  the  services  of  Miss  Nightingale  in  the 
East  demand  the  grateful  recognition  of  the 
British  people."  The  room  was  crowded  to  suf- 
focation with  the  flower  of  England's  men  and 
women,  her  own  parents  among  them.  The 
speeches  were  beautiful,  and  were  touching  to 
a  degree  in  their  perfect  recognition  of  the 
single-minded  spirit  in  which  her  wonderful 
work  was  done.  Dearest  of  all  to  her  heart — 
perhaps  the  only  part  of  it  all  for  which  she 
really  cared  at  all — was  the  joy  that  this  public 
recognition  of  her  work  brought  to  her  parents 
and  to  her  sister.  Lady  Verney,  long  since  rec- 
onciled to  her  purpose,  and  now  understanding 
her  at  last.  35 


It  was  at  this  meeting  that  the  Nightingale^ 
Fund  was  inaugurated,  "to  enable  her  to  estab- 
lish and  control  an  Institution  for  the  training, 
sustenance,  and  protection  of  nurses,  paid  and 
unpaid."  This  fund  was  later  applied  by  her 
to  establish  a  training  school  for  nurses  at  St. 
Thomas's  Hospital.  The  flood  of  popular  en- 
thusiasm rolled  on  through  the  British  Domin- 
ions, and  public  meetings  in  support  of  her 
fund  were  everywhere  held.  And  the  Queen 
honored  her  with  a  beautiful  jewel,  especially 
designed  for  her  by  the  Prince  Consort. 

After  recovery  from  her  illness.  Miss  Night- 
ingale was  urged  to  return  to  England,  but  she- 
insisted  on  remaining  at  her  post,  part  of  the 
time  at  Scutari  and  part  at  the  Crimea,  until 
after  the  termination  of  the  war.  It  was  on 
August  4,  1856,  four  months  after  the  treaty  of 
peace  was  signed,  that  she  reached  again  her 
native  land. 

Public  excitement  was  intense  at  the  thought 
of  her  expected  return,  but,  as  Lord  Ellesmere 
had  said,  speaking  on  May  5  in  the  House  of 
Commons,  "she  is  probably  planning  now  how 
to  escape  as  best  she  may,  on  her  return,  the 
demonstration  of  a  nation's  appreciation  of  the 
deeds  and  motives  of  Florence  Nightingale." 
She  arrived  at  Lea  Hurst  from  Paris  unrecog- 
nized, under  the  name  of  Miss  Smith,  and 
walked  unaccompanied  from  the  little  station  to- 
the  protection  of  her  home. 

Disappointed  of  a  public  demonstration,  the- 
Press  overflowed  with  admiring  tributes  in 
poetry  and  prose.  With  his  usual  timeliness,. 
Mr.  Punch  published  several  excellent  poems. 
One  of  these,  which  appeared  on  August  23, 
1856,  mirrors  so  well  the  sympathetic  under- 
standing and  the  real  affection  that  swayed  the- 
British  public  of  her  day,  that  it  is  in  the  truest 
sense  historic,  and  for  that  reason  may  be 
quoted  here. 


36 


"The  Nightingale's  Return. 

•'Most    blessed    things    come    silently,    and    silently 

depart, 
Noiseless  steals  springtime  to  the  year,  and  comfort 

to   the  heart. 
And  still  and  light,  and  gentle,  like  a  dew,  the  rain 

must  be 
To  quicken  seed  in  furrow  and  blossom  upon  tree. 

"Nile  has  his  foaming  rapids,  freshets  from  mountain 
snows. 
Yet,  where  his  stream  breeds  fruitfuluess,  serene  and 

calm  he  flows. 
And,    where    he    overbrims,    to    cheer    his   banks    on 

either  side. 
You  scarce  can  mark,  so  gradual,  the  swelling  of  his 
tide. 

"The  wings  of  angels  make  no  stir  as  they  ply  their 
work  of  love. 

Yet  by  the  balm  they  shed  around,  we  know  them 
that  they  move. 

God  spake  not  in  the  thunder,  nor  the  mighty  rush- 
ing blast. 

His  utterance  was  in  the  still  small  voice  that  came 
at  last. 

"So  she,  our  sweet  Saint  Florence,  modest,  and  still, 
and  calm, 

With  no  parade  of  martyr's  cross,  no  pomp  of  mar- 
tyr's crown, 

To  the  place  of  plague  and  famine,  foulness  and 
wounds  and  pain, 

Went  out  upon  her  gracious  toil,  and  now  returns 
again. 

"No  shouting  crowds  about  her  path,   no  multitude's 

hot  breath, 
To  fan,  with  winds  of  vanity,  the  doubtful   fires  of 
faith. 
Her  path  by  hands  official  all  unsmoothed.  her  aims 

decried. 
By  the  Levites.  who,  when  need  was,  passed  on  the 
other  side. 

"When  titles,   pensions,   orders  by   random   hand   are 
showered. 
'Tis  meet  that,  save  with  blessing,  she  still  should 

walk  undowered. 
What  title  like  her  own  sweet  name  with  the  music 

all  its  own? 
What  order  like  the  halo  by  her  good  deeds  round 
her  thrown? 

87 


"Like  her  own  bird,  all  voiceless  when  the  daylight 

songsters  thrill. 
Sweet  singer  in  the  darkness,  when  all  songs  else  are 

still. 
She,   in   that    night   of   darkness    that    turned   other 

hearts  to  stone. 
Came,  with  soft  step  and  gentle  voice,  yet  wise  and 

firm  of  tone. 

"Think  of  the  prayers  for  her,  that  to  praying  hearts 

came  back 
In  rain  of  blessings,  seeming  still  to  spring  upon  her 

track. 
The   comforts   of  her   graciousness    to   those   whose 

road  to  death 
Was  dark  and  doubtful  till  she  showed  the  light  of 

love  and  faith. 

"Then  leave  her  to  the  quiet  she  has  chosen.    She  de- 
mands 
No  greeting  from  our  brazen  throat,  and  vulgar  clap- 
ping hands. 
Leave  her  to  the  still  comfort  the  saints  know  that 

have  striven. 
What  are  our  earthly  honours?     Her  honours  are  in 
Heaven." 

Punch,  Aug.  23,  185G. 


38 


IV 

THE  PERIOD  IMMEDIATELY  FOLLOW- 
ING THE  CRIMEAN  WAR 

1856-1861 

Plates  VIII,  IX,  X,  XI 


The  Period  Immediately  Following  the 
Crimean  War 


The  dissimilarity  between  the  early  and  the 
late  portraits  of  Miss  Nightingale  has  often 
been  remarked.  This  is  not  entirely  due  to 
the  fact  that  the  earlier  ones  are  mostly  light 
crayon  drawings,  the  later,  photographs  "taken 
by  commandment  of  the  Queen"  on  her  return 
from  the  East ;  nor  is  it  to  be  explained  by  the 
natural  changes  occurring  in  the  transition 
from  young  maidenhood  to  early  middle  age. 
There  is  in  the  best  of  these  later  portraits  to 
be  clearly  traced  the  birth  of  a  great  experi- 
ence. She  has  seen  and  partaken  of  the  travail 
of  the  world's  tragedy,  and  it  has  left  its  in- 
delible mark  upon  her  face.  The  qualities,  too, 
that  she  has  gained  in  the  great  conflict  are 
visible.  This  is  especially  true  of  the  charming 
little  head  shown  in  Plate  Vlll.  p]nduranee, 
unflinching  decision,  tempered  with  the  kindly 
tolerance  born  of  a  great  sympathy,  even  a 
humorous  appreciation  of  the  frailties  of  of- 
ficialdom, are  all  expressed  in  the  fine  curves 
of  the  mouth,  while  in  the  eyes  is  the  deep  con- 
tentment of  one  who  has  seen  the  Vision,  and 
knows  of  the  foundations  of  her  faith. 

During  the  five  years  following  the  Crimean 
War,  and  especially  during  the  immediately 
succeeding  time,  Florence  Nightingale  needed 
every  spark  of  spiritual  force  which  had  come 
to  her  from  the  fires  through  which  she  had 
passed.  She  and  her  friend  Sydney  Herbert, 
with  other  loyal  coadjutors,  were  together  to 
shoulder  a  burden  of  reform,  under  which  im- 
mediate action  was  so  imperative,  that  only  by 
unrelaxing  effort  could  results  be  achieved.  The 
41 


Plate  VIII.     JIis^  JyuiUTiNuALE  ox   Her  Keturx  fkom  the 
Crimea. 
From  a  photograph  in  the  collection  of  the  late  Mr.  J.  B. 
Learmont,   Montreal,   reproduced  also   by   the   London   Stereo- 
scopic  Company. 


strain  was  of  a  different  kind  from  that  in  the- 
Crimean  hospitals,  but  the  task  to  be  accom- 
plished was  even  more  gigantic.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  unremitting  energy  demanded  of  her 
told  upon  her  weakened  frame,  and  she  became 
permanently  invalided,  and  saw  all  her  dreams 
of  an  active  life  among  the  hospital  training 
schools  she  was  about  to  inaugurate,  perma- 
nently denied  her.  Moreover,  during  these 
years  she  was  to  see  Lord  Herbert  himself  sink 
42 


under  the  work.  He  died  in  1861,  before  he 
had  accomplished  what  she  called  the  "main- 
spring" of  the  whole, — the  reform  of  the  in- 
ternal organization  of  the  British  War  Office. 
His  death  was  a  blow  from  which  she  never 
quite  recovered.  During  these  five  years  they 
were  in  constant  communication  and  consulta- 
tion, and  were  allies  in  the  truest  sense,  giving 
to  each  other  a  comradeship  and  a  loyal  sup- 
port and  understanding  that  was  essential  to 
the  great  results  that  they  attained.  Their 
work  was  in  a  sense  complementary,  for  she 
had  the  administrative,  he  the  political  and 
executive  mind  (Sir  Edward  Cook).  Their  re- 
lationship is  to  be  recognized  as  one  of  the 
great  friendships  of  all  time,  and  in  a  sense  it 
is  unique  in  history.  Sydney  Herbert  was  a 
man  of  immense  charm,  with  a  devoted  wife 
who  shared  his  every  thought,  and  between 
whom  and  Miss  Nightingale  there  existed  a 
close  intimacy  and  a  strong  spiritual  tie.  Not 
the  least  part  of  the  great  inheritance  that 
Florence  Nightingale  has  left  to  her  sex,  is  the 
fact  that  such  true  friendship  between  man  and 
woman  can  and  does  exist. 

Only  the  first  few  days  of  Miss  Nightingale's 
return  to  England  were  given  up  to  personal 
matters.  The  consciousness  pressed  home  that 
her  experience  in  the  Crimea  must  not  be  al- 
lowed-to  sink,  even  temporarily,  into  oblivion, 
but  that  the  iron  of  public  opinion  must  be 
struck  while  still  hot,  if  the  evils  under  which 
the  soldiers  had  suffered  were  not  to  be  repeated 
and  perpetuated.  The  remarkable  change 
wrought  in  the  mortality  of  the  hospital  at 
Scutari  by  Miss  Nightingale  and  her  supporters 
during  the  first  six  months  of  the  war  was  to 
be  looked  upon  as  a  sanitary  experiment  of  the 
most  brilliantly  successful  kind.  It  was  of  vital 
importance  to  the  future  welfare  of  the  army 
that  the  evils  fought  against  and  corrected  in 
the  Crimea,  should  be  exposed  in  a  Royal  Com- 
43 


Plate   IX.     Miss  Nightingale    (about    1856). 

(Taken  by  order  of  the  Queen  shortly  after  her  return  from 

the   Crimea.) 

From   a   picture   in   the   possession   of  the  Canadian  Nurses' 
Association,  Montreal. 


mission  of  enquiry,  and  that  action  should  be 
taken  against  their  repetition  while  indignation 
still  burned  hot  in  public  sentiment.  Miss 
Nightingale  was  keenly  alive  to  the  horror  that 
had  surrounded  her  in  the  Crimea,  and  never 
44 


forgot  that  mortality  rate  of  60%  in  the  Scu- 
tari Hospital  during  the  first  weeks  of  her  stay- 
there,  that  blackened  the  good  fame  of  the 
British  Army  regulations.  Among  her  private 
notes  of  1856  is  written,  ''I  stand  at  the  altar 
of  the  murdered  men,  and  while  I  live  I  fight 
their  cause." 

The  required  reforms  were  already  the  sub- 
ject of  serious  discussion  between  herself  and 
Lord  Herbert.  It  was  at  this  juncture  on 
August  23,  1856,  a  fortnight  after  her  return, 
that  she  was  given  the  opportunity  by  an  invi- 
tation to  Balmoral  Castle,  of  personally  setting 
forth  to  Her  Majesty  the  sufferings  of  the 
Queen's  Army  in  the  East,  and  their  possible 
means  of  redress.  Her  preparation  for  the  in- 
terview was  thorough.  In  consultation  with 
those  who  had  the  cause  of  medical  reforms  at 
heart,  by  the  study  of  statistics,  by  enquiries, 
and  by  the  collection  of  her  own  notes  and 
memoranda,  she  armed  herself  to  make  the 
utmost  use  of  her  great  opportunity.  Nor  was 
she  disappointed.  The  Queen  and  the  Prince  Con- 
sort together  gave  her  their  fullest  attention. 
"She  put  before  us,"  wrote  the  Prince  in  his 
diary,  "all  the  defects  of  our  present  hospital 
system,  and  the  reforms  that  are  necessary.  We 
are  much  pleased  with  her;  she  is  extremely 
modest."  Nothing  could  be  done,  however, 
without  the  action  of  Ministers,  and  although 
she  returned  to  London  apparently  successful, 
many  months  of  delay  and  strenuous  insistence 
were  to  elapse  before  a  Royal  Commission,  with 
Lord  Herbert  as  chairman,  could  be  appointed. 
This  took  place  by  Royal  Warrant  on  April  26, 
1857,  shortly  after  the  publication  and  circula- 
tion of  Miss  Nightingale's  comprehensive  pri- 
vate report,  entitled,  "Notes  Affecting  the 
Health,  Efficiency,  and  Hospital  Administra- 
tion of  the  British  Army."  This  book  cre- 
ated a  profound  impression.  Sir  John  McNeill 
writes  repeatedly  in  appreciation  of  its  clear- 
45 


ness  and  vigor,  and  ends,  "I  think  it  contains  a 
body  of  information  and  instruction  such  as 
no  one  else,  so  far  as  I  know,  has  ever  brought 
to  bear  upon  a  similar  subject.  I  regard  it  as  a 
gift  to  the  Army,  and  to  the  country  altogether 
priceless." 

The  Commission  appointed,  its  duty  was  to 
submit  a  report  of  the  abuses  and  projected  re- 
forms, to  the  House  of  Commons.  Miss  Nightin- 
gale's own  evidence  took  the  form  of  thirty- 
three  pages  of  written  answers  to  questions  in 
the  "Blue  Book"  report.  "It  was  distin- 
guished," in  the  words  of  an  Army  doctor  of 
the  time,  "by  a  clearness,  a  logical  coherence,  a 
pungency  and  abruptness,  a  ring  as  of  true 
metal,  that  is  altogether  admirable." 

The  Report  itself  was  written  by  Mr.  Her- 
bert, with  much  assistance  from  Miss  Nightin- 
gale. It  recommended  the  appointment  of 
four  sub-commissions,  whose  functions  should 
be :  to  put  the  barracks  in  sanitary  order ;  to 
organize  a  statistical  department ;  to  institute 
a  medical  school ;  to  reconstruct  the  Army  Med- 
ical Department,  and  to  revise  its  hospital  regu- 
lations. To  it  was  appended  a  statistical  study 
made  by  Miss  Nightingale,  of  the  civil  and  mili- 
tary mortality  statistics  in  certain  London  par- 
ishes, from  which  the  startling  fact  revealed 
itself  that  the  rate  of  mortality  among  the  sol- 
diers living  in  barracks  was  five  times  as  great 
as  that  of  civilians  living  at  home.  To  force 
this  existing  fact,  namely,  that  the  Army  in 
time  of  peace  was  being  exposed  to  the  effects 
of  bad  sanitation  with  disastrous  results,  upon 
the  attention  of  the  House,  meant  a  hearing, 
which  perhaps  the  evils  of  the  Crimean  War, 
already  becoming  a  thing  of  the  past,  might 
possibly  not  obtain,  even  so  soon  after  the  ter- 
rible events.  After  much  activity  on  the  part 
of  all  interested,  the  Report  was  formally  acted 
upon,  and  the  four  sub-commissions  author- 
ized. They  immediately  set  to  work,  with  Miss 
4(J 


Plate  X.  Miss  Nightingale  on  Her 
Return  from  the  Ckisiea. 
From  a  photograph  in  the  possession 
of  Miss  Hall,  Lady  Superintendent  of 
the  Peter  Bent  Brigham  Hospital, 
Boston. 

Nightingale  the  heart  of  each,  herself  now  ill 
and  weak  from  the  prolonged  exertion  of  these 
strenuous  months,  after  the  strain  in  the 
Crimea.  It  was  quite  possibly  the  effects  of 
these  months  of  unremitting  exertion,  at  a  time 
when  her  body  demanded  rest,  that  left  her  a 
permanent  invalid.  A  diagnosis  of  Miss 
Nightingale's  malady  has  not,  so  far  as  we 
know,  been  framed,  but  her  own  statement 
about  herself  in  her  letters  to  her  medical 
friends,  suggest  that  she  suffered  from  some 
form  of  cardiac  insufficiency  associated  with 
cardiac  dilatation  and  a  paroxysmal  tachycardia. 
Even  at  her  lowest  ebb,  she  never  put  aside  her 
harness,  but  met  emergencies  as  they  arose  un- 
til, in  February,  1858,  the  various  investigations 
had  been  made  and  the  resulting  recommenda- 
tions were  embodied  in  a  second  Report  from  the 
Commission. 

47 


The  results  were  worthy  of  the  heavy  price 
she  paid  in  the  permanent  sacrifice  of  her 
health.  Each  commission  carried  its  work 
through  to  a  successful  issue,  with  beneficial  re- 
sults that  are  felt  in  our  own  day  in  a  hundred 
directions.  The  Crimean  episode  will  always 
take  a  leading  place  in  the  story  of  Florence 
Nightingale's  life.  But,  as  has  been  said,  its 
greatest  importance  lay  in  the  insight,  experi- 
ence, and  political  influence  which  she  gained 
in  it,  and  which  made  it  possible  for  her  to 
inspire  these  far-reaching  reforms. 

The  results  of  the  work  of  the  four  sub- 
commissions  may  be  briefly  summarized  as:  the 
better  barrack  accommodation  and  military  hos- 
pital construction,  which  have  resulted  in  the 
improved  health  of  the  British  soldier  at  home 
today;  the  revision  of  army  medical  statistics 
and  the  establishment  of  British  army  statistics 
on  a  higher  plane  than  that  of  any  other  coun- 
try in  the  world  at  that  time,  a  task  in  which 
the  statistical  skill,  energy,  and  persistence  of 
Miss  Nightingale  was  united  with  the  experi- 
ence of  the  celebrated  Dr.  William  Farr;  the 
foundation  of  the  Army  Medical  School,  and 
the  splendidly  equipped  Royal  Medical  College ; 
and  the  formulation  of  a  code  for  regulating 
the  relative  duties  of  regimental  medical  offi- 
cers, and  organizing  the  detail  of  the  internal 
administration  of  military  and  other  hospitals. 

The  third  sub-commission,  to  establish  an 
Army  Medical  School,  had  the  longest  and 
weariest  struggle  against  the  obstruction  of  sub- 
ordinates of  them  all,  but  it  accomplished  most 
important  results.  The  Army  Medical  School, 
afterwards  removed  to  Netley,  was  peculiarly 
Miss  Nightingale's  child,  and  she  watched  over 
its  early  .progress  with  earnest  solicitude.  In 
every  part  of  the  administration  the  professors 
sought  her  assistance,  and  she  made  a  successful 
fight,  against  much  opposition,  to  have  pathol- 
ogy recognized  in  the  professoriate.  Her  serv- 
48 


Plate    XI.     Miss    Nightingale 
(IN    1858) 

From  a  photograph  by  Goodman  in 
the  possession  of  Dr.  Collins  Warren, 
Boston. 

ices  as  the  true  founder  of  the  School  were  ac- 
knowledged at  the  time.  Dr.  Longmore,  the 
professor  of  military  surgery,  told  the  students 
that  it  was  she  "whose  opinion,  derived  from 
large  experience  and  remarkable  sagacity  in  ob- 
servation, exerted  an  especial  influence  in  origi- 
nating and  establishing  this  school."  "For 
originating  this  school, ' '  wrote  Sir  James  Clark, 
"we  have  to  thank  Miss  Nightingale,  who,  had 
her  long  and  persevering  efforts  effected  no 
other  improvement  in  the  army,  would  have  con- 
ferred by  this  alone  an  inestimable  boon  upon 
the  British  soldier." 

Apart  from  the  work  of  the  commissions, 
many  other  army  reforms  were  instituted  by 
Mr.  Herbert  and  inspired  by  Miss  Nightingale. 
Such    were    the    committee    to    reorganize  the 

49 


Army  Hospital  Corps  and  the  Soldiers'  Recrea- 
tion Clubs.  The  latter  were  organized  by  them 
with  much  success,  not  only  in  England,  but  at 
Gibraltar,  Chatham  and  Montreal,  which  was 
then  a  military  post.  The  regimental  institute 
attached  to  every  modern  barrack  is  the  direct 
outcome  of  this  branch  of  their  pioneer  work. 

Such  is  a  brief  outline  of  the  epoch-making 
work  carried  on  by  Sydney  Herbert  and  Flor- 
ence Nightingale  during  these  five  years  imme- 
diately following  her  return  from  the  East. 
Great  as  it  was,  however,  these  reforms  in  army 
sanitation  were  not  by  any  means  the  only  side 
of  her  activities  during  this  period.  Of  equal 
importance  was:  (1)  her  work  in  the  reform  of 
modern  hospital  construction  as  a  whole,  (2)  in 
the  introduction  of  statistical  forms  for  hos- 
pital use,  and  (3)  especially  in  the  foundation 
of  modern  nursing. 

Miss  Nightingale's  prestige  in  matters  of 
hospital  construction  was  recognized  before  her 
book,  "Notes  on  Hospitals,"  appeared,  in  1858. 
This  book  was  written  in  connection  with  her 
work  on  the  first  sub-commission,  and  is  a  tech- 
nical study  of  the  subject  supplemented  with 
numerous  maps  and  diagrams,  and  recommend- 
ing the  elementary  principles  of  sanitation, 
which  were  not  then  generally  recognized,  and 
the  pavilion  system.  "It  appears  to  me," 
wrote  Sir  James  Paget,  "to  be  the  most  val- 
uable contribution  in  application  to  medical  in- 
stitutions I  have  ever  read."  After  its  appear- 
ance she  was  widely  consulted  on  hospital  con- 
struction at  home  and  abroad,  and  revised  the 
plans  of  many  hospitals  erected  in  Great  Brit- 
ain, Germany,  Belgium,  Spain,  France,  India 
and  America. 

Her  work  as  a  statistician  has  already  been 
referred  to  and  her  alliance  with  Dr.  William 
Farr.  Her  statistical  forms  for  the  use  of  hos- 
pitals were  presented  at  the  International  Con- 
gress in  London  in  1860,  and  were  introduced 
50 


in  the  leading  London  hospitals.  On  June  21, 
1861,  a  meeting  was  held  at  Guy's  Hospital  and 
it  was  unanimously  agreed — by  delegates  from 
Ouy's,  St.  Bartholomew's,  St.  Thomas's,  the 
London,  St.  George's,  King's  College,  the  Mid- 
dlesex, and  St.  Mary's— "that  the  metropolitan 
hospitals  should  adopt  one  uniform  system  of 
registration  of  patients;  that  each  hospital 
should  publish  its  statistics  annually,  and  that 
Miss  Nightingale's  Model  Forms  should,  as  far 
as  possible,  be  adopted." 

Her  work  in  the  foundation  of  modern  nurs- 
ing has  been  described  as  one  of  the  three  great 
contributions  of  the  nineteenth  century  to  the 
relief  of  human  suffering  in  disease.  In  the 
alleviation  which  it  has  supplied  it  takes  rank 
with  the  discovery  of  anesthesia  by  Sir  James 
Simpson,  and  asepsis  by  Sir  Joseph  Lister, 

The  Nightingale  Training  School  for  Nurses 
was  opened  at  St.  Thomas's  Hospital  on  June 
24,  1860,  under  the  administration  of  the  Night- 
ingale Fund,  which  amounted  to  £44,000,  raised 
throughout  the  British  Empire,  as  a  tribute  to 
the  Crimean  heroine  in  1855.  Miss  Nightingale 
planned  every  detail  in  its  organization,  and 
assisted  the  first  matron,  Mrs.  Wardroper,  in 
the  discharge  of  her  activities.  She  herself  in- 
terviewed and  accepted  candidates  and  others, 
and  afterwards  preserved  the  closest  touch  with 
the  pupil  nurses  and  graduates.  The  influence 
of  the  school  spread  rapidly,  and  the  Nightingale 
nurses,  both  in  Great  Britain,  the  Colonies,  and 
the  United  States,  made  their  way  as  superin- 
tendents. The  Blockley  Hospital  in  Philadel- 
phia, and  the  Montreal  General  Hospital  here, 
were  two  of  those  that  owned  a  Nightingale 
superintendent.  In  Germany,  Sweden,  France, 
and  Austria,  too,  the  lead  was  followed,  and 
nurses  were  trained  along  the  same  lines.  Thus 
the  seed  that  was  carried  by  Pastor  Fliedner 
from  Elizabeth  Fry  in  London  to  Kaiserwerth 
in  Germany,  was  transplanted  by  Florence 
51 


Nightingale  again  on  English  soil,  and  grew  into- 
a  mighty  tree. 

It  has  been  well  said  that  Miss  Nightingale 
did  not  originate  the  idea  of  trained  nursing  of 
the  sick,  for  there  were  sisterhoods  and  great 
nurses  before  her  time.  What  she  did  do  was 
to  place  the  art  of  nursing  on  the  plane  of  a 
profession,  and  to  transfer  it,  as  the  books  of 
the  British  census  show,  from  the  category  "Do- 
mestic," in  which  it  stood  before  her  time,  to- 
that  of  "Medicine."  Both  by  precept  and  ex- 
ample she  taught  and  tried  to  instill  into  her 
nurses  the  principles  and  the  code  of  honor  that 
raise  an  occupation  into  a  profession.  She 
raised  a  great  enthusiasm  among  the  women  of 
her  time,  many  of  whom  grasped  her  meaning, 
and  worked  with  her  to  attain  this  end.  She 
took  it  out,  too,  of  the  place  in  which  it  had 
been  put  before  her  time  by  the  religious  or- 
ders, who  regarded  their  nursing  chiefly  as  a 
means  of  self-abnegation  and  humiliation.  She 
believed,  no  one  more  strongly,  that  the  true 
nurse  must  have  a  sense  of  vocation,  and  that 
without  it  she  should  not  enter  the  profession,^ 
and  with  her  "nursing  was  a  sacred  calling, 
only  to  be  followed  to  good  purpose,  by  those 
who  pursued  it  as  the  service  of  God,  through 
the  highest  kind  of  service  to  man."  But  she 
recognized  also,  that  the  skilled  services  of  the 
trained  nurse  should  form  an  honorable  means 
of  livelihood,  and  insisted  on  the  public  recog- 
nition of  this  fact.  Miss  Nightingale  never 
thought  or  cared  about  what  has  been  called 
women's  rights,  but  she  was  essentially  a  pio- 
neer in  the  interests  of  her  sex.  By  the  high 
estimate  and  value  she  placed  upon  the  skilled 
services  of  women  in  a  capacity  in  which  only 
they  can  serve,  she  raised  the  public  sense  of 
the  value  of  those  services  all  along  the  line, 
and  there  is  probably  no  other  woman  to  whom 
modern  women  owe  so  much.  Her  words  on  the 
subject  of  the  modern  feminist  movement,. 
52 


which  was  just  beginning  in  her  day,  and  which 
close  her  little  volume  "Notes  on  Nursing,"  are 
an  epitome  of  wisdom,  and  strike  directly  home. 

''I  would  earnestly  ask  my  sisters  tj  keep  clear 
of  both  the  jargons  now  current  everywhere 
{for  they  are  equally  jargons);  of  the  jargon, 
namely,  about  the  'rights'  of  women,  which 
urges  women  to  do  all  that  men  do,  merely  he- 
cause  men  do  it,  and  without  regard  to  whether 
4his  is  the  best  that  women  can  do;  and  of  the 
jargon  ivhich  urges  women  to  do  nothing  that 
men  do,  merely  because  they  are  women.  Surely 
woman  should  bring  the  best  she  has,  whatever 
that  is,  to  the  work  of  God's  world,  without  at- 
tending to  either  of  these  cries.  It  does  not 
make  a  good  thing,  that  it  is  remarkable  that  a 
ivoman  shoidd  have  been  able  to  do  it.  Neither 
does  it  make  a  thing  bad,  which  would  have 
been  good  had  a  man  done  it,  that  it  has  been 
done  by  a  woman. 

''Oh,  leave  these  jargons  and  go  your  way 
straight  to  God's  work,  in  simplicity  and  sin- 
gleness of  heart." 

The  "Notes  on  Nursing"  was  published  in 
1860.  It  is  the  best  known  of  her  writings,  and 
in  the  purity  of  its  English,  the  vigor  and  sim- 
plicity of  its  style,  and  the  fundamental  sound- 
ness of  its  teaching,  is  in  the  highest  sense  a 
classic.  It  is  a  book  which  anyone  may  read 
with  delight  and  information  today,  and  should 
be  republished  in  popular  form.  Florence 
Nightingale  possessed  the  literary  faculty  in  a 
very  high  degree,  and  was  a  voluminous  writer, 
but  she  held  this,  as  she  did  her  social  accom- 
plishments, very  lightly,  to  be  used  only  as  a 
means  to  an  end,  and  to  be  considered,  rather 
as  a  "temptation"  to  be  avoided,  that  might 
lead  her  away  from  the  purpose  to  which  she 
had  consecrated  herself,  and  never  as  an  end 
in  itself.  This  is  the  reason,  that  although  her 
contributions  to  the  literature  of  her  time  are 
53 


as  important  and  probably  as  numerous  as  those 
of  her  illustrious  contemporaries,  Mrs.  Gaskell, 
George  Eliot,  and  Harriet  Martineau,  they  are 
not  recognized  as  such,  for  they  are  largely  on 
technical  subjects  and  many  of  them  are  hid- 
den in  the  Blue  Books  of  the  day.  It  is  only 
when  she  is  dealing,  almost  as  it  were  by  acci- 
dent, with  subjects  of  wider  intellectual  scope, 
that  her  power  of  literary  expression  and  her 
clearness  of  vision  in  the  realm  of  abstract 
thought  are  fully  revealed  to  us.  The  best  il- 
lustrations are  to  be  found  in  her  lengthy  cor- 
respondence with  such  men  as  William  Jowett 
and  John  Stuart  Mill,  and  in  her  great  religio- 
sociological  treatise,  entitled  "Suggestions  for 
Thought  to  Searchers  for  Truth  among  the 
Artizans  of  England  and  to  Searchers  after 
Religious  Truth,"  published  in  three  volumes, 
containing  729  pages  in  all,  by  Eyre  and  Spot- 
tiswoode,  London,  in  1860.  Her  yearly  "Ad- 
dresses to  the  Probationer  Nurses  in  the  'Night- 
ingale Fund'  at  St.  Thomas'  Hospital,"  printed 
for  a  limited  private  circulation  during  the 
years  1873  to  1888,  stand  out  also  as  models  of 
clear  diction  embodying  principles  of  deep  eth- 
ical and  spiritual  force.  The  nineteenth  cen- 
tury has  been  called  pre-eminently  the  century 
of  great  w^omen.  It  is  from  the  literary  and 
philosophic,  as  well  as  the  philanthropic  side, 
that  Florence  Nightingale  possesses  an  eminent 
place  within  the  circle. 


54 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE    IN 
LATER    LIFE 

1861-1910 

Plates  XII,  XIII,  XIV,  XV 


Florence  Nightingale  in  Later  Life. 


Sydney  Herbert  died  in  1861  when  Florence 
"Nightingale  was  forty-one  years  of  age.  She 
lived  nearly  fifty  years  longer,  and  for  thirty- 
five  of  these  retained  the  full  use  of  all  her 
faculties  and  the  same  phenomenal  capacity  for 
accomplishing  heavy  tasks  in  numerous  fields 
simultaneously,  each  of  which  was,  in  itself, 
sufficient  for  the  full  powers  of  a  single  indi- 
vidual. His  death  threw  her  into  a  state  of 
extreme  despondency,  for  she  had  lost  not  only 
a  dear  personal  friend,  but  the  ally  on  whom 
her  sanitary  reforms  depended.  From  the  se- 
clusion of  a  deep  retirement  she  published  a 
short  "Life  of  Lord  Herbert,"  in  which  she 
ascribes  every  part  of  their  reforms  to  his  work. 
Had  he  been  writing  the  book  he  would  have 
made  the  same  statement  in  relation  to  herself, 
and  in  a  sense  both  statements  would  have  been 
true,  so  completely  interdependent  was  their 
action.  In  ascribing  the  credit  for  all  the 
achievements  of  the  Crimean  climax  and  those 
resulting  from  it,  the  names  of  Sydney  Herbert 
.and  Florence  Nightingale  must  always  hold  an 
equal  place.  The  British  public  recognized  this 
fact  in  the  erection,  in  the  winter  of  1914,  of 
the  dual  statues  to  them  which  stand  on  either 
■side  of  the  Crimean  monument  in  London  today. 

Space  does  not  permit  of  even  the  complete 
enumeration  of  all  the  numerous  reforms  en- 
acted in  this  later  period  of  her  life.  Probably 
the  most  comprehensive,  and  certainly  that  in 
which  an  immense  portion  of  her  time  and  en- 
ergy was  expended  to  the  very  end  of  her  active 
life,  was  the  improved  sanitation  of  India, — a 
problem  arising  out  of  the  work  of  the  Crimean 
57 


commissions,  and  in  which  she  was  intimately^ 
associated  with  Sir  John  Lawrence,  Sir  Bartle 
Frere,  Lord  Roberts,  and  other  leading  East 
Indians.  She  stood  for  advanced  methods, 
brought  to  the  evidence  irrefutable  masses  of 
statistical  facts,  and  fought  desperately,  among 
other  things,  for  universal  irrigation.  She  was 
known  at  the  time  in  high  quarters  as  the  Provi- 
dence of  India.  "The  Indian  Sanitary  Com- 
mission's Report,"  a  huge  volume  consisting  of 
2028  pages  of  small  print,  contains  evidence  of 
her  work  on  almost  every  page. 

In  the  work  of  the  War  Office  again,  she 
maintained,  after  Lord  Herbert's  death,  a  very 
intimate  relationship,  which  in  time  came  to 
assume  the  relation  of  an  advisory  counsel.  This 
was  because  in  many  questions  she  had  come  to 
be  considered  the  first  expert  of  her  time,  and 
also  because,  in  Sir  Edward  Cook's  phrase,  she 
was  rightly  regarded  as  the  official  legatee  of 
Lord  Sydney  Herbert,  and  one  who  knew,  as  no 
one  else  could,  the  spirit  of  the  uncompleted 
reforms  he  had  projected,  and  the  traditions 
which  had  inspired  one  who  had  held  a  very  high 
place  in  the  public  trust.  She  was  concerned 
in  this  way,  not  only  in  questions  of  army  sani- 
tation in  time  of  peace,  but  in  all  the  problems 
that  arose  in  the  care  of  the  sick  and  wounded 
in  tlie  various  wars  that  broke  out  dur- 
ing this  long  period,  and  her  connection 
with  the  organization  of  the  Red  Cross  Society, 
and  the  various  associations  formed  for 
the  care  of  the  sick  and  wounded,  runs 
like  a  silver  thread  through  the  story  of 
this  latter  part  of  her  life.  Thus  we  find  her, 
during  the  course  of  the  American  Civil  "War, 
writing  on  October  8,  1861,  to  Dr.  Farr,  that 
she  had  sent  to  the  Secretary  of  War  at  Wash- 
ington, on  application,  all  the  War  Office's 
forms  and  reports,  statistical  and  otherwise.  At 
this  time  also  a  Sanitary  Commission  was  ap- 
pointed at  Washington,  which  reproduced  much 
58 


Plate  XII.     Miss  Nightingale  in   1887. 
From    a    picture    by    Sir    William    Richmond    at    Claydon,    and 
reproduced  in  Sir  Edward  Cook's  Life  of  Florence  Nightingale. 


of  Miss  Nightingale's  Crimean  work.  Again,  on 
December  18,  1861,  we  find  her  revising  the 
draft  of  the  commissariat  and  army  medical 
stores  for  the  projected  expedition  from  Eng- 
land to  Canada  in  connection  with  the  Trent 
affair. 

The  inception  of  the  Red  Cross  Society  on  an 
international  basis  owes  its  origin  to  the  sug- 
gestion of  a  Swiss  physician,     Henri  Dunant. 

59 


In  the  year  1859,  when  the  full  flood  of  Miss 
Nightingale's  Crimean  achievements  were  still 
fresh  in  the  public  mind,  the  bloody  battle  of 
Solferino  was  fought,  and  the  wounded  lay 
three  days  upon  the  battlefield  untended,  except 
for  the  irregular  ministrations  of  neighboring 
peasants.  Shocked  at  the  sight  of  the  tragedy, 
and  proclaiming  the  possibility  of  organized 
aid  that  the  Crimean  campaign  had  shown, 
M.  Dunant  carried  the  proposal  to  the  leading 
European  powers,  "that  an  organization  with 
international  privileges  be  established  for  the 
care  of  the  sick  and  wounded  in  war."  As  a 
result,  in  August,  1864,  an  International  Con- 
gress was  held  at  Geneva,  which  framed  the 
famous  Geneva  Convention,  on  which  the  con- 
stitution of  the  present  Red  Cross  Society  is  based, 
and  which  declares  medical  aid  on  the  field  to 
be  under  the  protection  of  a  recognized  neutral- 
ity. The  British  delegates  to  the  Congress  were 
Miss  Nightingale's  friends,  Dr.  Longmore  and 
Dr.  Rutherford,  and  she  drafted  their  instruc- 
tions. In  1872,  M.  Dunant  in  a  paper  read  in 
London,  said :  * '  Though  I  am  known  as  the 
founder  of  the  Red  Cross  and  the  originator  of 
the  Convention  of  Geneva,  it  is  to  an  English- 
woman that  all  the  honor  of  that  Convention  is 
due.  What  inspired  me  to  go  to  Italy  during 
the  war  of  1859  was  the  work  of  Miss  Florence 
Nightingale  in  the  Crimea." 

In  the  War  of  1866  between  Prussia,  Austria 
and  Italy,  all  three  of  the  combatants  sought 
and  obtained  the  assistance  of  Miss  Nightingale 
and  she  herself  joined  and  took  part  in  the 
London  Relief  Association  for  the  care  of  the 
wounded.  In  1867  a  gold  medal  was  awarded  to 
her  by  the  Conference  of  Red  Cross  Societies  in 
Paris,  and  in  1870,  the  Austrian  Patriotic  So- 
ciety for  the  Relief  of  Wounded  Soldiers  elected 
her  a  member.  During  the  whole  duration  of  the 
War  of  1870-71,  she  was  again  plunged  into  cease- 
less activity,  for  both  Germany  and  France  del- 
GO 


uged  her  with  correspondence.  She  met  all  de- 
mands, and  rendered  assistance  impartially  to 
the  sick  and  wounded  of  both  sides,  so  that  in 
July,  1871,  tlie  French  SocietS  des  Secours  aux 
Blesses  conferred  its  bronze  cross  upon  her, 
and  in  September  of  that  year  she  was  deco- 
rated by  the  German  Emperor  with  the  Prus- 
sian Cross  of  Merit.  In  spite  of  the  strict  neu- 
trality she  maintained  in  giving  aid  to  the 
wounded  of  both  sides,  it  is  interesting  to  us, 
in  this  year  of  war,  1916,  to  know  that  her  per- 
sonal sympathies  were  rather  with  the  French. 
"I  think,"  she  wrote  on  December  20,  1870, 
"that  if  the  conduct  of  the  French  for  the  last 
three  months  had  been  shown  by  any  other 
nation  it  would  have  been  called,  as  it  is,  sub- 
lime. The  uncomplaining  endurance,  the  sad 
and  severe  self-restraint  of  Paris  under  a  siege 
now  of  three  months  would  have  rendered  im- 
mortal a  city  of  ancient  Rome."  And  in  writ- 
ing to  the  Crown  Princess  of  Prussia  on  hos- 
pital matters,  she  pleaded  for  clemency.  ' '  Prussia 
would  remember,"  she  was  sure,  "the  future 
wars  and  misery  always  brought  about  by 
trampling  too  violently  on  a  fallen  foe."  "We 
know,  alas,  only  too  well,  how  sadly  her  assur- 
ance was  disappointed.  During  Lord  Wolse- 
ley's  Egyptian  campaign  of  1882  she  was  active 
in  organizing  the  female  nurses  who  were  re- 
quested, and  emerged  from  her  seclusion  to  at- 
tend several  military  reviews  in  London,  and 
then  and  thereafter  assisted  in  the  reorganiza- 
tion of  the  Army  Hospital  Service,  which  time 
was  again  bringing  into  disrepute,  and  the  in- 
terests of  which  she  was  able  to  forward  mate- 
rially during  the  course  of  a  visit  to  Balmoral 
in  1883,  to  receive  the  decoration  of  the  Royal 
Red  Cross  from  the  Queen's  hand. 

It  is  thus  seen  that  among  the  many  honors 
and  tributes  that  were  showered  upon  her  in  the 
closing  years  of  her  life  none  were  more  in  keep- 
ing wdtli  the  spirit  of  it  than  that  expressed  at 
61 


Plate  XIII.     Miss   Nightingale  in   Later  Life. 

Portrait  taken  by  Messrs.   S.   G.  PajTie  and  Sons  of  Aylesbury,    England,    and    published     in    the    Sphere. 

possession  of  Miss  H.  A.  Des  Brisay,  Montreal. 


From    a    copy    in 


62 


the  Eighth  International  Conference  of  Red 
Cross  Societies  in  London  in  June,  1907,  to 
which  Queen  Alexandra  sent  a  message  referring 
to  ''the  pioneer  of  the  First  Red  Cross  move- 
ment. Miss  Florence  Nightingale,  whose  heroic 
efforts  on  behalf  of  suffering  humanity 
will  be  recognized  and  admired  by  ail 
ages  as  long  as  the  world  shall  last.',' 
The  resolution  read:  "The  great  and  incom- 
parable name  of  Miss  Florence  Nightingale, 
whose  merits  in  the  field  of  humanity  are  never 
to  be  forgotten,  and  who  raised  the  care  of  the 
sick  to  the  position  of  a  charitable  art,  imposes 
on  the  Eighth  International  Conference  of  Red 
Cross  Societies  the  noble  duty  of  rendering 
homage  to  her  merits  by  expressing  warmly  its 
high  veneration." 

Another  large  sphere  of  activity  which  arose 
since  the  time  and  outside  of  the  department  of 
Sydney  Herbert,  was  that  of  Work-House  Re- 
form, a  movement  which  grew  directly  out  of 
the  work  of  the  Nightingale  Training  School.  In 
the  year  1864,  no  legislation  provided  for  the 
care  of  the  sick  poor  in  England,  and  an  ab- 
solute lack  of  attendance  combined  with  a  de- 
graded class  of  patients  to  make  the  conditions 
the  worst  possible.  From  a  noted  philan- 
thropist came  the  suggestion,  that  at  the  Liver- 
pool Work-House  Infirmary,  one  of  the  most 
difficult  institutions  of  all,  the  experiment 
should  be  tried  of  placing  twelve  Nightingale 
nui-ses  in  control,  with  a  superintendent  chosen 
from  among  them.  The  story  of  Miss  Alice 
Jones,  a  gentle  girl  of  high  religious  views,  a 
graduate  of  Kaiserwerth,  and  later  of  the  St. 
Thomas's  School,  who  struggled  and  won  vic- 
tory among  vicious  patients  and  a  difficult  man- 
agement, and  who  gave  up  her  life  in  doing  so, 
is  one  of  the  romances  of  the  history  of  nursing. 
It  is  told  by  Miss  Nightingale,  under  the  title 
Una  and  the  Lion, ' '  in  good  words.  The  suc- 
cess won  here  led  the  way  for  the  Metropolitan 


Plate  XIV.     Florence  Nightingale   in  Her  Koom  in   South   Street  at   the 

Age    of    Eighty-Six. 
From  a   photograph   by   Miss   Bosanquet,    1906,   and   reproduced   in   Sir   Edward 
Cook's   Life   of   Florence    Nightingale. 


64 


Poor  Act  of  1867,  which  was  a  starting-point  of 
medical  relief  to  the  poor  in  England,  and  is 
to  be  traced  to  the  efforts  of  many  earnest  men 
and  women,  and  chief  among  them  to  Miss 
Nightingale. 

The  failure  of  one  of  her  attempts,  that  is,  of 
the  Training  School  at  the  Lying-in  Depart- 
ment of  the  King's  College  Hospital,  is  to  be 
recorded.  It  is  of  importance  chiefly  today, 
because  it  led  to  the  publication  of  her  "Notes 
on  Lying-in  Institutions,"  which  is  to  be  com- 
pared to  the  "Notes  on  Nursing"  in  its  clear- 
ness and  originality  and  the  soundness  of  its 
practical  applications. 

The  Nightingale  Training  School  Avas  always 
under  Miss  Nightingale's  supervision,  but  after 
the  year  1872,  when  she  retired,  more  or  less, 
from  more  active  association  with  other  forms 
of  work,  and  when  it  was  removed  to  the  present 
new  St.  Thomas's  building,  she  identified  her- 
self still  more  closely  with  it,  and  it  sheds 
other  light  upon  her  extraordinarily  many- 
sided  character.  Here  again,  as  in  her  youth, 
we  see  her  from  the  domestic  side.  She  is  in 
close  contact  with  her  nurses,  knowing  each  one 
personally,  criticising  and  loving,  chiding  and 
helping,  always  on  the  highest  plane  of  prin- 
ciple, and  with  a  depth  of  personal  feeling  and 
sympathy  that  brought  her  into  the  closest 
range  of  influence  with  those  whom  she  was 
trying  to  inspire.  Every  year  she  formulated 
her  teaching  in  a  hospital  sermon,  which  took 
the  form  of  a  letter,  publicly  read  to  the 
nurses.  In  these  days  her  home  at  South  Street 
was  always  open  to  her  pupils,  whom  she  met 
here  in  a  sense  on  equal  terms,  and  all  loved  her 
dearly.  Just  as  in  her  beautiful  girlhood  she 
had  sat  at  the  feet  of  Elizabeth  Fry,  and  had 
drunk  to  her  soul's  fulfilment  of  the  springs  of 
that  ripened  humanitarianism,  so  in  her  own 
latter  days,  these  daughters  of  her  heart's  best 
wisdom  gathered  about  her  to  learn  from  her 
65 


Plate    XV.     Florence     Nightingale    in    1907. 
From    a   watereolor   drawing   by    Miss   F.    Alicia   De    Biden 
Footner,   and   reproduced   in  Sir   Edward  Cook's  Life  of  Flor- 
ence  Nightingale. 


66 


own  lips  what  it  was  she  would  have  them  to  do. 
As  the  years  closed  in  about  her,  her  nurses 
stood  to  her  in  the  relation  of  ' '  affectionate  chil- 
dren" or  "dear  sisters,"  who  had  gone  out  into 
the  world  to  carry  her  gospel  of  what  the  art 
of  nursing  meant  to  many  distant  lands. 

In  the  fulness  of  time,  after  a  life  so  crowded 
with  productive  labor,  philosophic  thought,  and 
literary  activity,  so  rich  in  sympathies  and 
affection,  and  so  transfigured  by  a  deep  re- 
ligious faith  that  one  could  scarcely  imagine  its 
equal,  death  came  to  her,  three  years  after  the 
Freedom  of  the  City  of  London  and  the  King's 
Order  of  Merit  had  been  conferred  upon  her. 
To  the  end  she  counted  herself  an  unprofitable 
servant,  and  realized  only  the  high  values  of 
those  things  which  she  had  struggled  to  attain. 


67 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


Miss  Nightingale's  Writings 
"Writings  about  Miss  Nightingale 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


The  following  selections  from  ]\Iiss  Nightin- 
gale's more  important  published  writings,  which 
are  taken  from  the  excellent  bibliography  given 
in  Sir  Edward  Cook's  Life  will  be  of  interest  to 
the  readers  of  this  address.  To  it  are  added  the 
titles  of  a  few  of  the  more  important  writings 
about  her  gleaned  from  the  same  source.  For 
further  details  those  interested  are  referred  to 
the  appendices  of  Vol.  II  of  the  above  book, 
which  contain  a  mine  of  authentic  information. 


MISS  nightingale's  writings. 

(1)  The  Institution  of  Kaiserswerth  on  the  Rhine, 
for  the  Practical  Training  of  Deaconesses,  under  the 
direction  of  the  Rev.  Pastor  Fliedner,  embracing  the 
support  and  care  of  a  Hospital,  Infant  and  Industrial 
Schools,  and  a  Female  Penitentiary,  London,  1S51. 
Octavo,  paper  wrapper,  pp.  32. 

(2)  Letters  from  Egypt  London:  Printed  by  A. 
and  G.  A.  Spottiswoode.  1854.  Octavo,  pp.  334  and  79. 
(The  letters  were  written  in  1849  and  1850). 

(3)  Report  upon  the  State  of  the  Hospitals  of  the 
British  Army  in  the  Crimea  and  Scutari,  1855.  pp. 
330-331,  342-343. 

(4)  Statements  exhibiting  the  Voluntary  Contribu- 
tions received  by  Miss  Nightingale  for  the  use  of  the 
British  War  Hospital  in  the  East,  with  the  Mode  of 
their  Distribution  in  1854,  1855,  1856.  London: 
Harrison,  1857.     Octavo,  red-paper  wrappers,  pp.  68. 

(5)  Notes  on  Matters  affecting  the  Health.  Effi- 
ciency, and  Hospital  Administration  of  the  British 
Army.  Founded  chiefly  on  the  Experience  of  the 
late  War.  Presented  by  request  to  the  Secretary  of 
State  of  War.  London:  Harrison  and  Sons,  1858. 
Octavo,  pp.  567. 

(6)  Subsidiary  Notes  as  to  the  Introduction  of 
Female  Nursing  into  Military  Hospitals  in  Peace  and 
in  War.  Presented  by  request  to  the  Secretary  of 
State  of  War.  London:  Harrison  and  Sons,  1858. 
Octavo,  pp.  133. 

71 


(7)  Papers  on  the  Hospital  at  Netley.  Examiner, 
July  24,  1858;  Saturday  iieview,  August  18;  Builder, 
July  24 ;  Daily  News,  July  28 ;  The  Lancet,  August  14 ; 
and  the  Leeds  Mercury,  August  21.     1858. 

(8)  Mortality  of  the  British  Army,  at  Home  and 
Abroad,  and  during  the  Russian  War,  as  compared 
with  the  Mortality  of  the  Civil  Population  in  England. 
Illustrated  by  Tables  and  Diagrams.  London: 
Printed  by  Harrison  and  Sons,  1858,  pp.  21. 

(9)  A  Contribution  to  the  Sanitary  History  of  the 
British  Army  during  the  late  War  with  Russia. 
Illustrated  with  Tables  and  Diagrams.  London: 
Printed  by  Harrison  and  Sons,  1859.  Large  folio, 
pp.  16  and  diagrams. 

(10)  Notes  on  Hospitals:  being  two  Papers  read 
before  the  National  Association  for  the  Promotion  of 
Social  Science,  at  Liverpool,  in  October  1858.  With 
Evidence  given  to  the  Royal  Commissioners  on  the 
State  of  the  Army  in  1857.  By  Florence  Nightingale. 
London :  John  W.  Parker  and  Son,  1859.  Octavo, 
pp.  108.  Second  Edition.  1859.  Third  Edition  en- 
larged and  altered,  187  pages.  1863,  published  by  Long- 
mans. 

(11)  Notes  on  Nursing:  What  it  is  and  what  it 
is  not.  By  Florence  Nightingale.  London  :  Harrison, 
1859.  Octavo,  pp.  70.  Sold  very  quickly  (15,000 
copies  within  a  month  of  publication). 

(12)  Notes  on  Nursing:  What  it  is  and  what  it  is 
not.  By  Florence  Nightingale.  New  Edition,  revised, 
and  enlarged.  London :  Harrison,  1860.  Octavo,  pp. 
224.  Reprinted  by  Appleton  and  Co.,  in  New  York, 
and  American  editions  appeared  in  1860,  1876,  1879, 
1.8S3.  1891,  1901,  1906,  1908.  1909.  Foreign  Transla- 
tions. Translated  into  Italian  1860  and  1887,  into 
Gei-man  1861,  into  French  1862. 

(13)  Proceedings  of  the  International  Statistical 
Congress.  Fourth  Session.  1860.  Contains  numerous 
Papers  and  Reports  by  Miss  Nightingale. 

(14)  Suggestions  for  Thought  to  the  Searchers 
after  Truth  among  the  Artizaus  of  England.  London : 
Eyre  and  Spottiswoode.  1860.  3  vols.  Octavo,  pp. 
292,  411,  126. 

(15)  Notes  on  Nursing  for  the  Labouring  Classes. 
By  Florence  Nightingale.  London :  Harrison,  1861. 
Bound  in  limp  red  cloth.  Reprinted  in  1865,  1868, 
1876.  1883,  1885.  1,888,  1890,  1894,  1898. 

(16)  Hospital  Statistics  and  Hospital  Plans.  By 
Florence  Nightingale.  Reprinted  from  the  Trans- 
actions of  the  National  Association  for  the  Promotion 
of    Social    Science     (Dublin    Meeting.    August    1861). 

72 


London :  Emily  Faithfull  and  Co.,  18012,  pp.  8  In- 
cludes the  Model  Statistical  Forms  which  were 
approved  by  the  International   Statistical  Congress. 

(17)  Army  Sanitary  Administration  and  its  Reform 
under  the  late  Lord  Herbert.  London :  M'Corquo- 
dale  and  Co.,  1862.     A  pamphlet,  8vo,  pp.  11. 

(18)  Thomas  Alexander,  C.  B.,  Director-General 
Army  Medical  Department.  A  Memorial  I^ietter  by 
Miss  Nightingale,  printed  in  the  Weekly  Scotsman, 
September  13.  the  Lancet.  September  27,  1802,  and 
many  other  papers. 

(19)  Observations  on  the  Evidence  contained  in  the 
Stational  Report  submitted  to  the  Royal  Commission 
on  the  Sanitary  State  of  the  Army  in  Inlia.  By 
Florence  Nightingale.  London :  Edward  Stamford, 
1863.  Octavo,  pp.  92.  This  is  a  reprint  of  the  "Obser*. 
vations,"  with  all  the  illustrations   (see  No.  33). 

Extracts  from  the  "Observations"  and  from  "How 
People  may  live  and  not  die  in  India"  (No.  41)  were 
printed  in  the  Soldier's  Friend,  July  1,  1-865. 

(20)  Sanitary  Statistics  of  Native  Colonial  Schools 
and  Hospitals.  Bv  Florence  Nightingale.  London : 
1863.     A  pamphlet,"  pp.  67. 

(21)  How  People  may  live  and  not  die  in  India. 
By  Florence  Nightingale.  (Read  at  the  Meeting  of 
the  National  As.sociation  for  the  Promotion  of  Social 
Science,  held  at  Edinburgh,  October  18()3.)  London: 
Emily  Faithfull.  1803.  A  pamphlet.  8v(>.  pp.  11. 
Second  edition,  November  1864.  published  by  Long- 
mans, 8vo,  pp.  18,  with  a  new  preface  (August  1864). 

(22)  Suggestions  in  regard  to  Sanitary  Works  re- 
quired for  Improving  Indian  Stations,  prepared  by  the 
Barrack  and  Hospital  Improvement  Commission. 
Blue-Book   (Suggestions,  pp.  1-37),  issued  1864. 

(23)  Suggestions  on  a  System  of  Nursing  for  Hos- 
pitals in  India.     February  24.  1865.     Folio,  pp.  18. 

(24)'  The  Organization  of  Nursing  in  a  Large  Town 
(an  account  of  the  Liverpool  Nurses'  Training 
School).  With  an  Introduction  and  Notes  by  Floi*- 
ence  Nightingale.     Liverpool.   1865.     Octavo,  pp.   103. 

(25)  Suggestions  on  the  Subject  of  providing,  train- 
ing, and  organizing  Nurses  for  the  Sick  Poor  in  Work- 
house Infirmaries.  Blue-book,  1807,  paper  XVI,  pp. 
64-79. 

(26)  "Una  and  the  Lion."  Good  Words.  .Tune.  1868. 
pp.  360-300.  An  account  of  Miss  Agnes  Elizabeth 
Jones,  "the  pioneer  of  workhouse  nursing." 

(27)  Memorandum  on  Measures  adopted  for  Sani- 
tary Improvement  in  India  up  to  the  end  of  1867; 
together    with    Abstracts    of    the    Sanitary    Reports 

73 


hitherto  forwarded  from  Bengal,  Madras,  and  Bom- 
bay. Printed  by  the  order  of  the  Secretary  of  State 
of  India  in  Council,  1868. 

(28)  Addresses  from  Miss  Nightingale  to  the  Pro- 
bationer Nurses  in  the  '"Nightingale  Fund"  School  at 
St.  Thomas's  Hospital.  Printed  for  Private  Circu- 
lation in  May,  1872 ;  May  23,  1873 ;  July  23,  1874 ;  May 
26, 1875 ;  April  28, 1876 ;  July,  1878;  Easter,  1879;  May 
6,  1881 ;  May  23.  1883 ;  July  3,  18&4 ;  New  Year's  Day, 
1886 ;  May  16,  1888 ;  June,  1897 ;  May  28,  1900 ;  Janu- 
ary, 1905. 

(29)  "A  'Note'  of  Interrogation."  Fi*aser's  Mag- 
azine, May,  1873,  pp.  567-577. 

(30)  "A  Sub-'Note  of  Interrogation.'  What  will 
our  Religion  be  in  1999?"  Eraser's  Magazine,  July, 
1873,  pp.  25-36. 

(31)  Life  or  Death  in  India.  A  Paper  read  at  the 
meeting  of  the  National  Association  for  the  Promotion 
of  Social  Science,  Norwich,  October  1873.  With  an 
appendix  on  "Life  or  Death  by  Irrigation."  London : 
Harrison  and  Sons,  1874.     A  pamphP  t,  pp.  63. 

(32)  "Irrigation  and  Means  of  Transit  in  India."^ 
The  Illustrated  Loudon  News,  August  1,  1874. 

(33)  Suggestions  for  Improving  the  Nursing  Ser- 
vice of  Hospitals  and  on  the  Methods  of  Training 
Nurses  for  the  Sick  Poor.  Folio,  pp.  18.  August, 
1874. 

(34)  The  Zemindar,  the  Sun,  and  the  Watering  Pot 
as  affecting  Life  or  Death  in  India.     Folio,  pp.  195. 

(35)  "The  Famine  in  Madras."  The  Illustrated 
London  News,  June  29,  1877. 

(36)  "The  United  Empire  and  the  Indian  Peasant." 
Journal  of  the  National  Indian  Association,  June, 
1878,  pp.  232-245. 

(37)  "A  Water  Arrival  in  India.  By  a  Commis- 
sioner."    Good  Words,   July,  1878,  pp.  493-496. 

Describing,  in  the  language  of  the  Royal  Progress, 
the  opening  of  the  Kana  Nuddee  (Blind  River)  in  the 
Hooghly  District. 

(38)  "The  People  of  India."  Nineteenth  Century, 
August,  1878,  pp.     193-221. 

(39)  "A  Missionary  Health  Officer  in  India."  Good 
Words,  July,  August,  September,  1879,  pp.  492-496, 
565-571,  635-640. 

(40)  "Irrigation  and  Water  Transit  in  India." 
Illustrated  London  News,  May  10,  24,  31. 

(41)  Can  we  educate  Education  in  India  to  educate 
"Men"?    Journal  of  the  National  Indian  Association, 

74 


Aniiust.    September.    October,    1879.    pp.    417-430,    478- 
491,  527-558. 

(42)  "Hiuts  and  Suggestions  on  Thrift."  Thrift, 
Jauuary,  1SS2,  p.  4. 

(43)  Training  of  Nurses  and  Nursing  the  Sick. 
Articles  .occup.ving  pp.  1038-1043.  1043-1049  of  Quain's 
Dictionary  of  Medicine. 

(44)  The  Dumb  shall  si>eak,  and  the  Deaf  shall 
hear ;  or,  the  Ryot,  the  Zemindar,  and  the  Govern- 
ment. A  Paper  read  at  the  meeting  of  the  East  India 
Association,  and  printed  in  its  Journal,  .July,  1883. 
Reprinted  separately,  pp.  48. 

(45)  "Our  Indian  Stewardship."  Nineteenth  Cen- 
tury, August,  1883,  pp.  329-338. 

(4G)  "The  Bengal  Tenancy  Bill."  Contemporary 
Review,  October,  1883,  pp.  587-602. 

(47)  "Hospitals."  Article  in  Chambers'  Ency- 
clopaedia, new  edition,  revised  and  partly  re-written 
by  F.  N. 

(48)  Health  Teaching  in  Town  and  Villages.  Rural 
Hygiene.  By  Florence  Nightingale.  London :  Spot- 
tiswoode  and  Co.,  1894.     A  pamphlet,  pp.  27. 

(49)  Village  Sanitation  in  India.  A  Paper  for  the 
Tropical  Section  of  the  8th  International  Congress  of 
Hvgiene  and  Demography  at  Budapest.  London: 
August  20,  1894. 

(50)  A  Letter  from  Florence  Nightingale  about  the 
Vict<orian  Order  of  Nurses  in  Canada.  A  small 
pamphlet,  in  white  paper  wrapi)ers,  pp.  4.  The  letter, 
to  Lady  Aberdeen,  is  dated  May  5,  1898. 

(51)  The  Soldier  in  War  Time.  Letter  to  the 
Balaclava  Survivors,  printed  in  the  Daily  Graphic, 
October  26.  1899. 

(52)  Message  to  Crimean  Veterans.  Printed  at  p. 
47  of  a  pamphlet  entitled  the  Crimean  and  Indian 
Mutiny   Veterans'  A.ssociation,  Bristol.     Bristol,  1905. 


II 

WRITINGS    ABOUT   MISS    NIGHTINGALE. 

(1)  "Who  is  'Mrs.'  Nightingale?"  A  biographical 
article  in  the  Examiner  (reprinted  in  the  Times, 
October  .30.  1854). 

(2)  Scutari  and  its  Hospitals.  By  the  Hon.  and 
Rev.  Sydney  Godolphin  Osborne.  London :  Dickin- 
son Brothers,  1855. 


75 


(3)  Eastern  Hospitals  aud  English  Nurses,;  the 
Narrative  of  Twelve  Months'  Experience  in  the  Hos- 
pitals of  Ivoulahi  and  Scutari.  By  a  I^ady  Volunteer. 
2  vols.     1.S5G;  3rd  edition  in  one  vol.,  1857. 

The  author,  Miss  Fanny  M.  Taylor,  v^^as  a  member 
of  the  secfond  party  of  nurses,  which  went  out  with 
Miss  Stanley. 

(4)  The  Nightingale  Fund.  Report  of  Proceedings 
at  a  Public  Meeting  held  in  London,  on  Nov.  29,  1855. 
Offices  of  the  Nightingale  Fund,  5  Parliament  Street. 
Pamphlet,  pp.  30+16+24. 

(5)  The  Prophecy  of  Ada.  late  Countess  f  Love- 
lace, on  her  friend  Miss  Florence  Nightingale.  Writ- 
ten in  the  year  1851.  Music  composed  by  W.  H. 
Moutgomonery.     London  :  G.  Emei-j'  and  Co.  (no  date). 

(6)  Pincoffs.  Experiences  of  a  Civilian  in  Eastern 
Military  Hospitals.  By  Peter  Pincoffs.  M.  !>.,  late 
Civil  Physician  to  the  Scutari  Hospitals.  William 
and  Norgate.     Chapter  VII. 

(7)  Soyer's  Culinary  Campaign:  being  Historical 
Reminiscences  of  the  Late  War.  By  Alexis  Soyer. 
London :     G.   Routledge.   1857. 

(8)  "What  Florence  Nightingale  has  done  and  is 
doing."     St.  James  Magazine,  April.  1861. 

(9)  Experiences  of  an  English  Sister  lof  Mercy. 
By  Margaret  Goodman.     Smith,  Elder  and  Co.,  1862. 

(10)  A  Trip  to  Constantinople,  and  Miss  Nightin- 
gale at  Scutari  Hospital.  By  L.  Dunne.  London : 
J.   Shepherd,  1862. 

(11)  Constantinoph'  during  the  Crimean  War.  By 
Lady  Hornby.  With  Illustrations  in  Chromo-Litho- 
graphy.     London  :  Bentley,  1863. 

12)  A  Book  of  Golden  Deeds.  By  Charlotte  M. 
Tonge.     MacMillan,  1864. 

(13)  A  Woman's  Example,  and  a  Nation's  Work: 
A  Tribute  to  Florence  Nightingale.  London :  Wil- 
liam Ridgway,  1864. 

(14)  Florence  Nightingale.  A  Lecture  delivered  in 
the  Theatre  of  the  Medical  College.  November  9, 
1865.     By  Major  G.   B.  Malleson.     Calcutta,  1865. 

(15)  Thomas  Grant,  First  (Roman  Caiholic) 
Bishop  of  Southwark.  By  (Jrace  Ramsay  (pseudonym 
of  Kathleen  O'Meara).     Smith,  Elder  and  Co..  1874. 

(16)  Life  of  the  Prince  Consort.  By  Sir  Theodore 
Martin.     5  vols.     Smith.  Elder  and  Co.     See  Vol.  III. 

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